Her brother, ambitious pig-man that he was, did not really understand America, she realized. Now that Chen was here, Jin Li knew, he would probably blunder about, intimidating the CorpServe employees, making clumsy inquiries. He'd be a little too excited to be in America, would run around feeling important. And spend a lot of money, too. Just because you were big in Shanghai didn't mean anybody even held the door for you in New York. The people of New York considered themselves to be living in the center of the known universe. They generally loved the other great cities of the world, especially London, Paris, Berlin, and so on, but they were quite opinionated about New York. You had to prove yourself in New York, she'd seen, prove you belonged, were good enough. Smart people came to New York from all over America to compete with one another for the city's riches and pleasures. This was how the Americans did it. Chen might not understand. Much as she hated the responsibility, he probably needed her help.
Now the gate opened and she was allowed to walk onto the ferry to Staten Island. She'd never taken it but it seemed familiar to her, one of the old ones with wooden benches-a lot like the creaking, romantic ferries that churned back and forth between Kowloon and the island of Hong Kong. She'd been there with her father, who'd gone to look for financing for one of his projects.
The time was nearly five p.m., a late spring evening when the air was fresh and cool, the season that the city renewed itself, and she watched the early commuters find their favorite spots and open their newspapers or handheld devices. The ride was certainly long enough for her to accomplish her plan and take the return ferry to Manhattan.
The announcement came over the speaker and the ferry moved. From her seat at the open stern she could see the skyline of Lower Manhattan shrink before her. Where had the World Trade Center been? She didn't really know, could sort of picture the two boxy towers. That seemed so long ago now. She'd watched the first reports on the television monitors in the university's dining hall, along with a knot of other students, some of whom cheered at the sight of Americans being incinerated.
When the ferry reached halfway across the harbor, she took out her cell phone, planning to activate it for the first time since the morning before the attack. Should she really do this? Her hands trembled. She knew that as soon as the phone went on, its signal pinged the nearest cell phone towers and that the police could at any later time identify its location, which was why she wanted to check the phone while moving across New York Harbor. Should she do it? Maybe not. But she felt so cut off now, so alone. She pushed the On button, heard the trill as the phone powered up. She had three messages. The first was from her brother, who said, "Jin Li, you must call me so I know you are fine. Mother and father have asked about you and I said you were good but they know I am not telling them something. Also, of course, we must keep the business going and I want to talk about that. I am paying your boyfriend, Mr. Ray, to help find you. All he cares about is money, he asked for so much. I had to pay double. I am at the new apartment in the Time Warner building. Call me, Jin Li."
Before she had a chance to figure out how many lies her brother had told her, the next message came on: "Jin Li, this is Ray, the guy who used to be your boyfriend. I'm not calling to talk about what happened between us. I'm just worried about you, okay? Your brother is in New York and found me. He's got a bunch of guys with him and he's looking for you…" She listened to the rest of the message, something about calling him at his father's home. She turned off the cell phone, unnerved by the sound of his voice, almost crying now. I miss you, Ray, she thought, I want to be with you. Why had she ever listened to her brother and let herself be told to break it off with Ray? On the night of the attack she probably would have been with Ray instead of riding in the little car with the two girls. Ray took her places, they ate all over the city, they walked in Central Park. He never probed too much, asked her why she worked so hard for CorpServe. He didn't want to possess her, she realized. She liked that. He never asked for any promises from her, either. They always had sex in her apartment. A wave of sad desire ran through her. She liked it when he turned her over onto her stomach, lifted up her hips, and began that way, his big hands holding her, sometimes running his finger up and down her backbone. One night as he did this, she'd said, do you count the strokes in and out? And he laughed and said, why do you ask? Well, it goes on for a long time, she said playfully. Yes, he answered, sometimes I do count the strokes, just to see. I knew it, she said. How many tonight? You tell me, he said, beginning again. No, you tell me, she'd answered, beginning to breathe hard. Fine, he'd said, hundreds, that's all I'm saying. She dropped her head down on the sheet, felt dizzy and a bit crazy, too, like she didn't exactly know who she was. Not exactly a bad feeling. Maybe she whispered go slow. Maybe she didn't.
Jin Li sighed and squirmed a little on the bench. What had she been thinking? Now she was living in a room in Harlem, afraid to go back to her apartment or work. There was one more message on her phone, she remembered, and maybe it was from Ray.
A strong male voice, not Ray's: "Hello, this is Detective Peter Blake of the Brooklyn Homicide Division of the New York City Police Department. I am looking for Jin Li, and I believe this is her phone number. Jin Li, you are a person of interest in a case involving the homicide of two Mexican women. We know that you were the supervisor of these women and may have seen them shortly before their deaths. I would personally appreciate a call from you at your earliest convenience at the following number." Which he gave, then added, "It would be in your best interests if you found me before I found you. Thank you very much."
The police? She snapped the phone shut in terror, looked around suddenly as if they could see her. How did the police get her name? Chen would not contact them; he wanted to find her first. But he and Ray had spoken. Each had referred to the other. Chen must have told Ray about what happened in the car.
And Ray-Ray had told the NYPD. She couldn't believe this but it was true. He'd betrayed her.
15
He remembered her foot, her ankle, her thigh. He set the little yellow sneaker on his truck's dashboard, a shiver of misery going through him. Oh, God, I miss Jin Li, Ray thought, every part of her. He sat parked in the lot of a check-cashing operation across the street from Victorious Sewerage, which was no more than an odd-shaped muddy lot surrounded by a twenty-foot fence topped with concertina wire, all this protecting a battered construction trailer at the rear and ten enormous, virtually identical sewage trucks parked in a haphazard line, including the one that Richie had driven into the lot twenty minutes earlier. A hulking cement-block building lay behind the trailer but it wasn't clear whether this was part of the operation. The day was done, past six p.m., and time was passing, he knew, clocks ticking everywhere, one on Jin Li, another on his father, a third on how long it would take Richie to get deeply paranoid.
A small Mexican man-a boy, really-with a red hose was standing atop one of the trucks, running steaming water into a valve. Murky water ran out of another valve at the bottom. Richie emerged from the trailer, walked over to a pickup truck, a certain spring in his step, like he was a man with a plan, and rolled out of the lot — with Ray following him. At the light, Ray pulled up close enough to jot down the license plate number. Then he saw Richie looking up at his rearview mirror. Ray pulled down his windshield shade. The idea was to follow Richie home.