Dragon Day

Chapter Ten

★

“Don’t say it.”

John grimaces. It’s as if holding back his “I told you so” is physically painful.

“Okay, you know that chengyu? That proverb? The one about how once you’re riding on a tiger, it’s really hard to get off?”

“Qi hu nan xia,” John mutters.

“Yeah. That’s where I am with the Caos.”

John halts in his tracks, and he just can’t contain himself anymore. “But why you get on tiger in the first place?” He’s punching the air with his fist as he says this.

We’re wandering around the Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, which he picked because it seemed like a good place to meet where neither of us would attract much attention, its being a tourist destination and all, but a low-key one. And it’s not that crowded today, but this isn’t exactly turning out to be a discreet conversation, which is what we’re supposed to be having right now.

I didn’t give him a blow-by-blow. Just, this girl turned up dead yesterday morning with my card on her body. And oh, yeah, whose party it was that I went to the night before last.

I lean against the metal railing that circles what used to be a decorative pond, or maybe a fountain. It’s hard to tell. The Yuanmingyuan was sacked and burned “by the Anglo-French imperialist forces” in the middle of the nineteenth century, during the Opium Wars, and what’s left is all these big blocks and pillars of granite, the remains of marble bridges and stone boats, almost like the pictures you see of ancient Greek ruins, just the skeletons of something that used to be really grand. Really powerful.

“Listen. I didn’t ask to get involved with the Caos. Sidney came looking for me. And the problem is, I owe him, big time.”

A six-pack of Chinese girls, college age, are posing for pictures around what must have been the centerpiece of the fountain, this giant scallop-shell thing that looks more European than Chinese. They’re cocking their heads to one side, kicking out their feet, making peace signs. They don’t seem too concerned with the outrage committed by the Anglo-French imperialist forces.

“He got me out of a really bad situation,” I say. “And there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to make us even.”

John stands rigidly still, the muscle in his jaw still twitching. Looks down at his sneakers. Black leather Pumas. If they’re fakes, they’re good ones.

He nods, still staring at his shoes. Then he looks up.

“I can help you. I have some ideas,” he says.

“What are you planning on doing?” I cut him off before he can object, before he can tell me to let him handle it. “If you’re going to help me, I need to know.”

A shrug. “Simple. I just go to this Inspector Zou and tell him I have interest in the case. He must tell me his progress. He has no choice but to obey.”

Hearing this makes me feel slightly sick to my stomach. “Then he’ll know I have a DSD problem.”

“Yes. But this way he can just report to me, not my bosses. I can make a suggestion, maybe he should arrest someone else.”

I think about it. The plan’s simple and kind of brilliant in a way: Do an end run around the DSD’s getting involved by being the DSD guy in charge before the bosses find out about the case.

But this is the Cao family we’re talking about, the Caos and their hong er dai connections. With people that powerful, if Zou pursues any of them, if they’re in any way connected to a murder and that gets out, what are the odds that Domestic Security gets a call? Either from the Caos or from one of their enemies?

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I finally say. “This goes wrong, you could get in a lot of trouble.”

“Not if we solve it quickly. Then I am just doing my job.”

“Solve?”

“Find the right one to blame.” His face darkens. “All those Caos, they are all guilty of something.”

Hoo, boy.

It’s possible that I just made things a lot worse.

On the way home, I stop at a dumpling place I like on Andingmen to pick up a late lunch. I get it to go. I don’t feel like eating in the restaurant by myself, and besides, I need to get home to my dog.

This place is popular, and it’s usually crowded, but right now, just after 2:00 p.m., the lunch crowd is gone. I sit on a hard wooden bench by the entrance and wait for my dumplings. A bunch of fuwuyuan eat their lunches at a round, plastic-covered table in the back, kitchen workers in white, waitresses in cheap embroidered jackets, “traditional” style except done in neon shades of pink and yellow and turquoise. A few more lounge around by the drink cooler in the back, yelling at a soccer game on the TV. Chinese soccer is a pretty corrupt business, or so I’m told, and I guess the national team sucks, but they still really get into it.

I shouldn’t have told John. If he starts digging around looking for dirt on the Caos… what are the consequences likely to be? It’s not like I care if he finds out that Tiantian or Meimei or Gugu or even Sidney is a corrupt fuck. I mean, that’s kind of the default setting if you’re fu er dai. It’s more that poking the hornet’s nest isn’t a good idea. Believe me, I know. I’ve done it when I didn’t even know that was what I was sticking my hand into. But John doesn’t have that excuse. He has to know that going after the Caos is asking for a shitstorm. And I know John. He’s a gung-ho mofo. He’s not going to stop until he completes the mission.

Or someone takes him out.

I get my dumplings.

I walk home along Gulou Dongdajie. Normally it’s one of my favorite streets-old-style grey brick buildings, two or three stories high, traditional signboards, funky little boutiques and coffeehouses. Today, though, I’m tempted to flag down a cab. It’s not that far, but my leg’s just killing me. I stop at a little snack stand, buy a bottle of water, crack it open, and take a Percocet, wondering like I do every time I take one lately how the fuck I’m going to manage when I run out of them this time.

I could try a doctor here, I guess. But everyone I’ve ever talked to tells me it’s almost impossible to get an outpatient prescription, and if you can, they’re pretty stingy with the pills and they cost a fortune to boot.

I’m standing in front of a guitar shop. For whatever reason, this stretch of Gulou Dongdajie has a bunch of music stores. You can buy guitars, drums, violins, traditional Chinese instruments, whatever. The whiteboard in the window of this one lists some of the guitars they have to offer, in English (the national steel country blues guitar), and below that, also in English, these lines: keep anger, keep revolt! fuck the world! fuck the government! fuck the red land!!!

Rock and roll, dude.

I keep walking.

I pass some fancy-ass private club-I mean, I’m assuming it’s fancy; I’ve never been inside. But it has discreet lighting, a traditional red door trimmed in brass, and a couple of very pretty hostesses standing outside in qipaos, I guess in case any princelings happen to stop by for happy hour.

Nice qipaos, I think. They remind me of the ones I saw at Tiantian’s party: Classy. Expensive.

I think about that house and that party and the kind of money it would take to have that place and throw that little get-together, and all it does is piss me off. Why do assholes rule the world anyway?

And then I think about something else. The serving girls at Tiantian’s party. The ones in the fancy qipaos. There were a lot of them. All young. All pretty.

I wonder if maybe one of them didn’t make it home that night.

Okay, granted, it’s a long shot.

Assuming that the dead girl is connected to Tiantian’s party and the Caos-which my gut tells me is the case, but hey, my gut’s been wrong before-she could have been a chicken girl, a hooker. Or one of the guests. But I figure a guest, someone with money or family connections, that kind of person doesn’t stay unidentified for long.

A fuwuyuan at some kind of high-class catering company? That’s a different story. Because I’m guessing it’s just a dressed-up version of your basic restaurant businesses. A lot of girls from all over China come to Beijing for work. They get hired in a restaurant. Their families are far away. They don’t show up for work one day, the employer may or may not give a shit. She’s moved on to something better, that’s what he might think. Or she’s just moved on.

So how do I find out if I’m right?

“Vicky, hi. It’s Ellie McEnroe.”

“Ellie McEnroe. Do you have report for Mr. Cao?”

I sigh between gritted teeth. Vicky’s like, like… I don’t know, a bloodhound or something, or maybe a leopard. I heard on some nature show that leopards fixate on their prey and you can’t break that focus until said prey is hunted down and killed. Or maybe it’s jaguars. Either way.

“I have dinner with the children soon. Meimei is arranging it.”

“So you report after this dinner?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.” Maybe. “Actually, I was calling about something else. There was a catering company at Tiantian’s party. Yige yinshi fuwu.”

“Yes?”

“I might have to organize an art opening, and this catering company was very good. I wondered if you know someone I could ask for their name?”

“Of course, I have it.” An uncharacteristic chuckle. “You think Tiantian runs his own house?”

Score. This is going better than I hoped. I thought I’d end up with another name, Tiantian’s housekeeper or something like that, or if my luck was really sucking, Dao Ming, Mrs. Tiantian. But I can picture Vicky Huang keeping an eye on things if Sidney’s money is involved.

“Would you mind sending the name to me?”

A hesitation. “This company… is very expensive.”

“I’d like to talk to them. My client might be willing to pay.”

I get the feeling Vicky Huang’s of the “knowledge is power” school and she’s reluctant to part with any of it. Or maybe I’m right, and something happened last night, and she knows about it.

She’s silent for another moment.

“Deng yixia.” Wait a minute. I hear her fingernails tapping, probably on her iPad. “I email it to you.”

The next thing I do is call John.

“I have an idea who the dead girl might be. But you’d be able to find out a lot easier than I could.”

“Okay, good.” He sounds cautious, measured. “So tell me.”

“If I do, I want you to promise me something. That you tell me if I’m right. After you find out but before you go do anything about it.”

“Yili, maybe it’s better-”

“No.” I take in a deep breath. “You’re the one who’s always saying I should trust you. So okay, you want me to trust you? Then do what I’m asking.”

This is it, I think. He’ll turn me down, or he’ll agree, and if he agrees, then all I can do is hope that he keeps his word. Which is no sure thing.

“Okay,” he says. “I will tell you what I find out.”

Here’s my thinking. John is in a better position to go to the catering company and get a useful response. All he has to do is show that DSD credential-I mean, assuming he has one in his capacity of undercover nark. And while tracking down the identity of the dead girl is still likely to bring him into the Cao’s kill zone, it might be more surgical than if he just goes after any and all Caos. Maybe the blowback won’t be as bad.

Because I guess I like John, and I’d rather see him not get into trouble.

And if he can actually figure out who this girl is and who killed her, maybe I’ll be off the hook.