Crooked River

24

Peter Quarles made his way down the crooked, congested streets of a city that had no name. Or if it had a name, he had not been able to discover it. All he could say for certain was that he was in Guangdong Province in southern China. Dongguan, a first-tier manufacturing city, was to his east, across the Pearl River. Just to his west was Foshan, itself an agglomeration of three dozen towns that specialized in industries from chemical processing to communications equipment to biotechnology. And here he was, in a bustling no-man’s-land of small-time commerce and manufacturing, situated in an anonymous district just a stone’s throw from the South China Sea.

Yet Quarles felt curiously at home. He was not so many years removed from his time in import-export work, and was not so brainwashed by Bureau mentality, that he’d found it difficult to slip back into his old guise. After just one day, the crowds, the endless yammering, the smog, and the smells had all become familiar and comfortable, and he fell back into that shuffling two-step that one used to get about in the congestion. Nobody would suspect him of being anything more than a gweilo middleman, working at the low end of the manufacturing business — which, in fact, was true. Except that his Mandarin was perhaps a little too refined.

The only difference from back then was how Agent Pendergast had financed this investigative journey with a most lavish expense account. How he’d managed it, Quarles didn’t know, but the man had made clear he would take care of everything and that Quarles should not stint on his accommodations, meals, bribes, or hiring assistants. And so Quarles had splurged, staying at the Marco Polo in Jinjiang and the Shangri-La in Wenzhou. As he’d expected, he’d had no luck in either city finding a manufacturer of anything like this odd slipper: a cheaply made, disposable product of propylene that nevertheless sported both high fluid resistance and antibacterial properties. Even Dongguan, where he’d placed most of his hopes, had initially been a dud: a big influx in Brazilian manufacturing had driven out many of the local manufacturers he thought most likely to have made these. But he soon learned those small-time manufacturers had not disappeared — they had migrated across the river into the shadow of Foshan. And so it was here — as he walked along Zhaofang Road, the towers of Lunxiang Residential District rising behind him — that he undertook his search in earnest.

He paused for a minute to wipe his brow and adjust the cheap canvas bag he’d slung across his shoulders. He’d already spoken to several mom-and-pop operations, greasing his inquiries with packets of Dunhills, Gauloises, and Camels. Though none had been able to help him directly, they’d suggested he try the neighborhood around Zhaofang Road. He glanced ahead through the crowds, taking note of a cotton factory, a sugar water shop, a school, and a salted-chicken restaurant called Every Day Is Better. He saw a couple of shopfronts of the near-ubiquitous clothing manufacturers, but no shoemakers. But that did not dissuade him — small manufacturers were often found on second floors or down narrow alleys.

He continued, careful to give a wide berth to the monolithic structure titled Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and then — when the road took a sharp turn — found himself at the edge of a Cantonese food market. Tanks swarming with abalone, crab, and clams were everywhere, next to other vendors selling savory cuts of dog, cat, and other four-legged creatures. There were no tourists in sight, just locals — travel guides billed the food in this region as “most disagreeable” to Western palates. And yet Quarles had grown to like it. Yue cuisine put a premium on fresh ingredients, lightly cooked and seasoned. And as for the ingredients themselves, well, you got used to them after a while.

He wandered across the market, continued down Zhaofang, and then spotted exactly what he was looking for: a tiny, windowless shop with a few pieces of leather last nailed across the doorway. It lay in the shadow of the Wooden Bucket, an offal house that specialized in spicy beef soup. He stepped toward it quickly, pushed aside the improvised door, and entered.

As his eyes became accustomed to the dim interior, he saw an old man sitting behind a long wooden table. He was slicing small lines across the lower edges of shoe uppers, preparing to glue them to the soles. Behind him was an equally old woman working a sewing machine. Piles of footwear lay here and there — including, Quarles noticed, some disposable shoes not so different from the one in his satchel.

He removed his sample and stepped forward. “You good?” he asked politely in Mandarin.

The man merely nodded.

Quarles showed him the shoe. “Have you seen this handiwork before?”

Something in the man’s eyes told Quarles it was familiar to him. But he simply shrugged, giving the universal gesture for not understanding what Quarles was saying.

This was ridiculous, of course, but also part of the usual dance. Even though Mandarin was primarily the language of business, Quarles switched to the Sam Yap dialect used by local Cantonese. He reached into his satchel again, this time removing a hóng bāo, a red envelope of cash: an equally universal gesture. He placed it against the sole of the shoe, then thrust them both toward the man. “Do you know where I can get more of these?” he asked.

The old woman, who had grown interested as soon as the red envelope made its appearance, now rose and together with the old man scrutinized the shoe carefully. Quarles waited, taking more red envelopes out of his satchel and counting them, implying that more hóng bāo would be forthcoming if his quest was successful.

At last the old man handed back the shoe, minus the envelope. “Try Changyou Fourth Road,” he said in Sam Yap. “Down near the ancestral temple. There are still one or two factories that may produce what you seek.”

“M goi nei sin,” Quarles said. Then, putting the shoe and envelopes back into his satchel, he turned, opened the door, and was quickly carried away by the crowds thronging the street.