Hector’s pleasure faded quickly. He took on a sullen expression and looked like he wanted to tell me something.
“You all right?” I prodded.
“I didn’t tell you this before,” he started, “but maybe I should have. It’s about Jeanette.”
Hector recalled the day that Jeanette went missing. She had taken a taxi to the Valenti compound and was inside with the man himself for quite a while. Hector was replacing a taillight when she appeared at his side and asked if he could drive her home.
“She was crying,” he told me.
“Did she say why?”
“I didn’t ask. I just drove her back to her mom’s house.”
When they pulled up, she didn’t immediately get out of the car. She lingered in the back seat like she wanted to say something and after some time asked him if he had kids.
“I told her I did — one girl and one boy. Three grandchildren, too. She then asked me if I was a good father. I said I didn’t know. That maybe she should ask my kids.”
Hector apologized for not telling me this earlier, but in his act of contrition, while sincere, it wasn’t exactly clear to me what he was apologizing for.
“I never told you she was pregnant,” he said.
“You knew she was pregnant just from that one exchange in the car?” I asked incredulously.
“You don’t have kids, do you?” he threw back.
“No.”
Hector said nothing more, as if that was enough proof. Behind it was the implication that I shouldn’t question someone in a club of which I wasn’t a member. And this member of the club was coming to an unsatisfactory conclusion about Jeanette’s first foray into motherhood.
“You don’t think she had her baby in there?” he asked, hoping I would tell him that she didn’t.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
We hung around for a little while to see if we could spy the Filipina nurse coming out of the building but she never showed her face. There were too many orderlies who knew our faces and we decided not to risk it any further and left the area. I made a move to get into the back seat.
“Sit in front,” he instructed.
A WOMAN’S SCREAM
We continued east to Arcadia where the owner of the Victorian property had its office. My old real estate agent was growing tired of tracking down information for me on houses that I never intended to buy but she couldn’t risk telling me so on the off chance I was legitimately interested in playing the market.
Hector and I found the building, which was more a storefront than an actual office. On its left was a brilliantly-lit dumpling house doing a brisk business before lunch had even started. From the looks of the clientele and cars in the lot, it catered to scores of young Asians capping off a night of cruising and clubs with steaming baskets of pork shao mai. On its right was an old lady’s brassiere shop that hadn’t changed the display window in thirty years and was the heroic stalwart from an era and community that wasn’t coming back.
We pulled into an open slot and studied the storefront. The door and windows were heavily tinted and obscured whatever “business” lay beyond it. We went up to the front entrance but the door was locked and our knocks went unanswered. I cupped my hands over the glass to try to see beyond the tint but got nothing but black. I stepped back and noticed faces in the reflection of the glass. I turned to see a group of young Asian men surrounding us. At the middle of the circle was Gao Li.
Gao’s initial reaction surprised me. He was more afraid than angry and he glanced around the parking lot like he expected there to be more people coming.
“Where’s the cavalry?” he asked, but I didn’t understand the reference. When he realized there were none, he got his legs under him and returned to his old self. “You’re blocking my door, asshole.”
Gao brushed by me and unlocked the front entrance.
“We wanted to talk to you about an old building in Alhambra. It’s filled with a bunch of Chinese women and babies. But I don’t remember seeing any sign about it being a hospital.”
My words spooked a few of his cronies to peel off, and even Gao looked a little unsure but he masked it well.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“The owner of the building is a corporation that lists this address,” I said and pointed to the building behind him.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said and took a step inside.
“How much do you charge?” I called after him. “I’m sure it’s not cheap.” One aspect of Gao’s New China narrative, one he conveniently left out, was that despite the economic boom vaulting many Chinese into the upper levels of wealth, it didn’t mean they actually wanted to raise their families there.
“What do they come over on, tourist visas?” I pressed. “Spend a few weeks in that dump, deliver their babies and leave with U.S. citizenship. Not a bad deal, depending on the price.”
“Take off before you regret it,” Gao responded coldly.
Hector didn’t like his tone and took a step forward. I reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.
“Hold up, Hector. It’s not worth it.”
Gao cocked his head.
“What’d you say?” he asked but he directed it at Hector, not me. Gao seemed to be doing a calculation in his head and when he finally came to his answer he took a bold step forward. “Hector Hermosillo?” he asked. “Hector Hermosillo?” he repeated again.
I didn’t like the feeling at that moment and instinctively pulled Hector towards me. Gao and his cronies started to form a circle around us. I used a car pulling into the lot as a way to put some distance between us and kept pushing Hector in the back, guiding him towards the car. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jeanette’s father shouted before I could even get off a hello.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you harassing Mr. Li?”
I looked around the parking lot expecting to see Jeff watching us watching Gao. I didn’t find him.
“I’m not following. We’re here in Arcadia outside his office.”
“What?!” he screamed. “You’re where?”
“In Arcadia.”
“Get out of there before you ruin it entirely!”
“Ruin what?” I asked.
“Just get out.”
Not that I needed any encouragement to leave the area, but his tone grated on me. And I didn’t appreciate how he felt the need to boss me around.
“Calm down,” I told him. “We’ll come to your office.”
***
The foundation’s main entry was unlocked. We found Jeff in his office as he pored over a sheath of papers. There was a new installation behind him. It was the extreme close-up of a woman’s face projected onto a ten-by-ten screen. Although she remained very still there were slight movements, a twitch here and there to clue you in that it wasn’t a still photograph but an actual video. After about a minute I caught her first blink. She looked Nordic, had cold, dull eyes and stared impassively at the void before her. After the last installation this work must have been a welcomed respite.
“Nice piece,” I commented, but Jeff was in no mood to talk art.
“Are you fucking with me?” he shouted.
“Take it easy.”
“What did I ever do to you?” It wasn’t necessarily a rhetorical question but it was still one of those you didn’t need to, or want to, answer. “Seriously,” he persisted, “what did I ever do to you?”
“Mr. Schwartzman—”
“Don’t ‘mister’ me, all right? Pretending to be all business-like after you’ve fucked me over. I welcomed you into this office. I told you things and was very forthright about everything. And you sat there and listened and then went and stabbed me in the back. I thought we were cut from the same cloth. And now you’re pulling out the formalities.”