‘Eleven isn’t first thing.’ The other man paused. ‘If I understood you correctly, you want to earn some money, right?’
‘You did understand me correctly! And you want something from me, don’t you? So who makes the rules?’
‘You, my friend.’ Was it his imagination, or could he hear the man laughing softly? ‘But how about ten regardless?’
Grand Cherokee thought for a moment. He had to tend to the roller-coaster at ten; it opened at half past. But on the other hand, perhaps it was a good idea to speak to Mister Big Money alone. If notes were going to change hands, the fewer onlookers there were the better, and at ten they would be completely alone: him, the man and the dragon.
‘That’s fine.’ Besides, by then he would have thought of something. ‘I’ll let you know where you need to come.’
‘Good.’
‘And bring a nice bulging wallet with you.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t give you cause to complain.’
That sounded good.
Did it sound good? The cars rushed in and braked to a halt. The ride was over. Grand Cherokee looked over at the twenty-four pairs of trembling knees. He mentally prepared himself to provide support to the weakest ones.
Yes, it sounded good all right!
Jericho
Yoyo’s shared flat was on Tibet Lu in a neighbourhood of identical-looking concrete towers. Just a few years ago there had been a night market here. Crouched gabled houses had thronged alongside one another in the shadow of the skyscrapers, an island of poverty and decay on just four square kilometres, with insufficient water supply and continual blackouts. Traders used to spread their wares out on the pavements, opening shops and doors so their living space took on the function of a stockroom and salesroom in one, or simply transforming their entire house into a street kitchen. Practically everything was for sale: household goods, medicinal herbs, roots to strengthen the libido, extracts to combat evil spirits, and souvenirs for tourists who had stumbled across the market accidentally and couldn’t tell the difference between plastic and antique Buddhas. Pots steamed in every corner, a smell of fried fat and broth filled the narrow passageways. In no way unpleasant, as Jericho remembered from having strolled through there shortly after his arrival. Some of the things which had changed hands in exchange for a few coins had tasted incredibly good.
And yet a life was considered wretched if the people living it were forced to share a chronically blocked-up toilet between ten, assuming, that is, that their building even offered the luxury of a toilet. Logically then, when the real estate companies and representatives of the town planning department rushed in with their offers, one might have expected collective joy. There was talk of light and airy apartments, of electronic hobs and showers. But none of the residents’ eyes had reflected the sparkle of sanitary promise. There was neither excitement nor resistance. They just signed the contracts, looked at one another and knew that their time had come. This life would come to an end, but it had still been a life nonetheless. The simple houses had seen better times, back before China’s economy had started to accelerate in the early nineties. They were run-down, without a doubt, but with some good will they could still be called home.
Months later, Jericho had gone back there. At first he thought there must have been a bomb attack. A troupe of workers had been busy razing the entire quarter to the ground. His initial surprise had turned into disbelief when it dawned on him that a good half of the inhabitants were still living there, going about their usual business as wrecking balls swung all around, walls collapsed and dumper trucks transported off tonnes of rubble.
He had asked what would happen to the people once the whole quarter had disappeared.
‘They’ll move,’ one of the builders enlightened him.
‘And where to?’
The man’s answer never came. Jericho, filled with consternation, had wandered around as darkness crept in and the stage was set for an amputated night market, its protagonists seeming to stubbornly deny the destruction taking place around them. Whenever he asked someone about it, they simply assured him, calmly and politely, that it was just the way it was. After a while Jericho became convinced that it couldn’t solely be down to the broad Shanghai dialect that he only ever understood that one sentence, and that it must actually be the standardised reaction to every kind of catastrophe and injustice. Mei you banfa: There’s nothing one can do.
Once night fell, a few people became more talkative. A plump old woman, preparing delicious little dumplings in broth, told Jericho that the compensation from the building authorities wasn’t anywhere near enough to buy a new apartment. Nor was it enough to rent one for any considerable length of time. A second woman who came over said that each of the inhabitants had been offered a much higher sum to start with, but that no one had received the amount they had been promised. A young man was considering making a complaint, but the plump woman dismissed that with a subdued flick of her hand. Her son had already complained four times. Every complaint had been rejected, but on the fourth time they had locked him up in a cell for a week, only showing him the door after they had administered a number of kicks.
Jericho ended up leaving as clueless as he had come. Now he had returned for a third time, and there was no indication that there had ever been anything here but towers with air-conditioning in front of the windows. The blocks were numbered, but in the advancing dusk the numbers blurred against the background. Some idiot had clearly thought it would be chic to paint pastel on pastel – in huge numbers, admittedly – but in poor light they were as hard to make out as snow-white mountain hares in a snowstorm. Jericho didn’t waste time marching up and down the streets. He pulled out his mobile, entered in the number and let the GPS figure out his location. A grid-section of the city from satellite perspective appeared on the screen. Jericho projected the map onto the wall of a nearby house. The beamer was strong enough to generate a brilliantly clear image measuring two by two metres. The street he was standing on ran diagonally over the wall, along with a number of side and parallel streets. He zoomed in. One blinking signal pinpointed his current location down to the nearest metre, another marked out Yoyo’s address.
‘Please walk straight ahead for thirty-two metres,’ said the mobile in a friendly tone. ‘Then turn right—’
He deactivated the voice and set off. He had found out all he needed to know: that Yoyo’s building was just around the corner and easily reached.
Within two minutes he was ringing the doorbell.
It was a surprise visit and therefore an investment of sorts. The relative slimness of the chance he’d find someone at home was cancelled out by the benefits of the surprise attack. The recipient of the visit, if there were one, had no chance to prepare himself, hide things or rehearse lies. According to Jericho’s research, Yoyo’s flatmates had never had a criminal record, nor had they ever attracted the attention of the authorities. One of them, Zhang Li, was studying Economics and English, the other was enrolled in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. As far as the authorities were concerned he was called Wang Jintao, but called himself Grand Cherokee. That was nothing unusual. In the nineties, young Chinese people had begun to put Western names before their family ones, a practice that wasn’t always carried out that tastefully. It wasn’t uncommon for men, in ignorance of a word’s associations, to name themselves after sanitary towels or dog food, whilst on the women’s side it wasn’t unusual to meet a Pershing Song or White House Liang. Wang, for example, had even selected himself an American four-by-four as a forename.