I push my way up to the bar. Not too many customers this time of night. A couple Western hippie/backpacker types, a young Chinese woman wearing a sixties-style polka-dot dress, her girlfriend in rolled-up Levi’s and slicked-back hair. The waitress is Chinese, the bartender some burnout European guy dressed in black, with big gold earrings. “What can I get you, love?” he says.
I look at the beer list. “Erdinger, I guess.” Thirty kuai, which is nuts, but at least it’s a big bottle.
He pours, I pay, and I hobble off to a solitary armchair in the back of the bar. I sip my beer and let the music wash over me. I seriously don’t know why I’m here.
After a few minutes, Polka-Dot Dress and Levi’s drift over. “Hello!” Polka-Dot Dress says. “Where are you from?”
“Beijing. Ni ne?”
She giggles. “Oh, you speak Chinese! So many foreigners speak Chinese now! We are from Shanghai.”
The two of them settle down in chairs next to me and strike up a conversation. Levi’s is an “independent filmmaker working on story of two lesbians in relationship and one marries gay man to satisfy family demands.” Polka-Dot is a fashion designer. “We come here because Dali very artistic place. You can meet all kinds of people.”
They seem nice. It’s nice talking to them. One of the backpackers comes over, a guy from Germany. The bar starts to fill up, not that it takes much in a place this size. Porkpie Hat Guy and Lei Feng T-Shirt, the couple from the train, arrive. “Hey, ni hao! You came!” The backpacker buys a round of the local Dali beer for the table. I’m thinking, you know, this is… nice. I can meet people, and hang out, and enjoy myself. I’m feeling like a member of the human race for a change.
And that’s when Russell from Yangshuo walks in the door.
I spot him right away. Weaselly dude with greasy hair, his cheekbones and Adam’s apple overwhelming his chin. And he’s limping. A lot. Worse than me. He has an actual cane. His head swivels around, like he’s looking for someone.
Me, apparently.
He limps over. Stretches the corners of his mouth in an attempt at a smile.
“Hey. Ellie. Glad I found you.”
“Russell, right?”
“That’s right.”
He sits in the chair next to me that the backpacker guy just vacated. He has to juggle the cane to pull out the chair, because his free wrist is wrapped in an elastic bandage.
“How did you know I was here?” I ask.
“Dali’s a small place.” The smile again. “American, good-looking girl, I asked around.”
Oh, brother. “I didn’t tell anyone I was coming to this bar. I didn’t even know I was coming to this bar.”
“Like I said, small town. And a little luck.”
I try to think it through.
If I could figure out that Jason had a connection to the Dali Perfect Inn, no reason someone who actually knew him wouldn’t be able to as well. Russell could have started there, I guess. Tracked me to the Indian place. And from there…
“This bar is in all the guidebooks,” he’s saying. “You know, your Lonely Planets.” His lip curls a bit as he says this.
But how would he know I was in Dali?
I shrug. “Okay, whatever. What do you want?”
He leans toward me. Ducks his head. Lowers his voice. “You want to find David, right?”
I lean back. I don’t like this guy in my face. I nod. “Yeah.”
“What if I could take you to him?”
“IT’S A FARMHOUSE,” HE says. “Outside town a bit. I’ll take you there.”
“A farmhouse. You pulled a knife on me, and you want me to go with you to a ‘farmhouse.’ ” I make the finger quotes. “I may not be Einstein, but I’m not fucking stupid.”
“You fucking drove me into a ditch,” he half snarls. “And you-” He thinks better of it and shuts up.
“Stomped on your foot when you tried to mug me? Yeah. I’m real sorry about that.”
I watch him try to calm himself down.
“Look, we didn’t know who you were,” he says. “The… the people we’re up against, they have…” He looks around. Lowers his voice. “They have spies. Everywhere.”
“Uh-huh. Okay.”
And I thought I was paranoid.
“So who is it you’re up against?”
“You know.”
“Not offhand.”
He leans in close. “Eos.”
Eos. Naturally. “And New Century Seeds?”
Russell nods.
“Why are you coming to me now?” I ask.
“We checked you out,” he practically whispers. His mouth is next to my ear. I can still barely hear him over the music. “Your story, I mean. That you’re a friend of David’s family.”
“I checked out, huh? Interesting.”
Because there’s no way my story could have “checked out”-I never gave Russell, or Erik, or Alice, or anyone “David’s” real name or the names of his family.
The only person who could verify it is David/Jason himself.
So either Russell is a big liar or he really is in contact with Jason.
“I’m not just gonna go with you to some farmhouse,” I finally say. “I mean, why should I trust you?”
“I thought you wanted to talk to David.” He sounds surprised.
“I do.” I hold out my hand. “Give me the address. Write it down. Name a time. I’ll meet you there.”
HE DOESN’T WANT TO do it, but in the end he doesn’t have much choice. Because I’m totally willing to hit the eject button on this mission and head home. Russell, on the other hand, seems really hung up on my going to this farmhouse. Which all by itself is a reason I’m not so enthusiastic about going, because this guy is a weasel, and not in the cute little pet ferrety sense.
Finally he gives in. Scribbles something on a piece of paper. “Okay,” he says. How about ten-thirty?”
“Okay.”
“Come by yourself,” he hisses. “Or there’ll be trouble.”
I shrug, to cover a shudder.
You don’t have to go, I tell myself.
HOW DID RUSSELL KNOW I’d gone to Dali?
Here’s the thing: the Chinese government’s finding a foreigner most places in China, not a surprise. There are ways around it, but, for example, I have to show my passport every time I register at a hotel, and you’ve got to figure they have some means of tracking you with that.
Russell, though, wouldn’t have that information-that is, unless he’s working for the government.
I try to figure out the implications of that scenario, and it makes my head hurt.
Otherwise, if Russell really is a friend of Jason’s, then he could have known about Jason’s list of seed companies. Those were three locations: Guiyu, Dali, and Guiyang, in Guizhou. So he had a one-in-three chance of getting it right, and if he’s in contact with Daisy, a one-in-two, because Daisy could have told him that I’d already gone to Guiyu. And maybe he could make an educated guess that I might choose Dali over Guiyang, given the video evidence. No films by Langhai from Guiyang or Guizhou, not yet.
On the other hand, Russell really doesn’t seem that smart.
Erik, though…
I have this sudden flash of him sitting across from me at the table, studying Jason’s photo like he’s analyzing a poker hand.
Yeah, he’s smart.
I CAN’T FIND A regular taxi, so I end up in one of those three-wheeled motorcycle carts, sitting on a bench covered with fake fur under a canopy of orange-and-pink-dyed fabric strung up on skinny metal tubing that looks like it couldn’t bear the weight of a shower curtain. The driver is a woman who resembles one of the pot-selling grannies without the traditional dress-instead her round, wrinkled face is shaded by a New Orleans Saints baseball cap.