Dragon Day

Chapter Nineteen

★

I doze stretched out on the white leather seat for the next few hours, slipping in and out of dreams that most of the time I can tell my head is making, the low hum of the engine mixing with the ambient music on the sound system. At one point we stop and I bolt up, heart pounding. I was having a dream, or a memory. Of riding in an up-armored Humvee.

I look out the window. We’re at a gas station just off the highway, a flat road under hazy, yellow-grey skies.

I lean back against the seat. I wish we’d get going. I liked it better when we were moving.

“Do you want some lunch?” Meimei asks.

I shake my head, thinking she means the restaurant next to the station, a low, white-painted concrete building that you find at gas stations like this, serving dishes swimming in oil in battered white plastic bowls to long-distance bus passengers on their twenty-minute break. “Only if you do.”

She mimes a shrug. “We have some things packed, if you want them.”

“Oh. That sounds good. But… I think I’ll use the xishoujian, long as we’re here.”

I hoist myself up with an assist from the handgrip that runs above the window, lean against the side of the Hummer for a minute, waiting for my leg to stop cramping enough that I can walk.

I hobble off to the head.

What I do first when I get there is pee, in the stall with the lone Western toilet, because the leg’s hurting enough that I’m not sure if I can manage a squat. Also, the stall has a door.

After I pee, I get out my old phone, swap the SIM card, turn on the VPN, and go to the email account I use to talk to John, aka Cinderfox.

I see the forwarded email I sent, the one from Celine, detailing corruption and offshore accounts.

And I see one from Cinderfox:

“WHERE ARE YOU? CALL ME AT THIS NUMBER.”

I call. He picks up.

“Wei?”

“It’s me.”

“Yili, why…?”

“Because someone bugged my bag.”

“Bugged?” He sounds confused.

Shit. He doesn’t know what that means, and I can’t remember the Chinese equivalent.

“Put something. In my bag. To spy. A microphone. Was it you?”

“Yige qietingqi? No.” A pause. “Wo cao.” Fuck me.

“Yeah.”

“Where are you now?”

“South of Shanghai. Going to a place called Movie Universe. Uh, Dianying Yuzhou.”

“But… Why?” He sounds so frustrated. I can just picture him standing there clutching his forehead like he’s getting a really bad headache.

“To keep an eye on the Cao kids.”

A moment of silence. Then, “You should not… You… Why?”

“Because my mom is a guest of Sidney’s, okay?” I snap.

I hear a sharp intake of breath.

“Your mother… If he has done something…” He sounds furious. I kind of like him right now.

“She’s fine. But I need to see this through. You want to find out who did it, right?”

Funny. He asked me almost the same question.

You want to get justice for this girl?

“Yes, of course. But this is not safe for you.”

“What is?”

That’s when I hear a swarm of footsteps and chatter-a bunch of women entering the bathroom. A bus must just have pulled in.

“Look, I have to go. I’ll call you later. There’s other things… We need to talk.”

“Yili-”

“Later.”

I hit the red button. Swap SIM cards.

Yeah, we need to talk. About what he’s been doing, if he’s found out anything about Celine’s death, if he’s gone to Inspector Zou and pulled DSD rank on him. The thought makes me shudder. Uncle Yang’s on John’s ass, too. Right now he doesn’t know how to find him. But if John’s outed himself to Beijing PSB, if he’s asking questions about people connected to the Caos…

Who knows what could happen?

I hobble back toward the Hummer, squinting in the hazy sunlight.

Meimei leans against the car, striking a pose. Waiting for me.

“Are you feeling all right? You took a while.”

“Oh, yeah, you know. Yidianr la duzi. But I’m fine now.”

She stares at me through her designer shades. Why do I get the feeling I’m not the only one playing detective here?

“Happy to hear.” She gestures toward the Hummer. “Ready to go?”

“Sure,” I say. “Hey, we have any of that coffee left?”

Because whatever the game is, I’m pretty sure it’s on.

We drive another couple of hours, through plains with checkerboard fields and clusters of skinny five-story buildings topped with weird silver-I don’t know what they are. Weather vanes? Antennae? Decorations? A bunch of globes of different sizes topped by crescent moons, skewered on a pole like some aluminum chuanr. I’ve seen them before, and I’ve always wondered, but I’ve never gotten around to asking anyone about them.

“You know, that was a crazy party at Tiantian’s place,” I finally say.

I might be imagining it, but I think her coffee cup pauses for a second, just before it hits her lips.

“Was it?”

I do my best sincere chuckle. Which is probably not very good.

“Yeah. I mean… I saw some kind of weird things.”

She sips. “Such as?”

“Oh, just… people having a little too much fun. You know? And it was still pretty early when I left. I’m guessing things just got crazier.”

“Oh,” she says, and she seems to settle back into her seat. “Yes, I think I left right after you.” Then she laughs. She doesn’t sound too sincere either.

“Yes, people like to have fun,” she says. “And… it can get crazy sometimes, when you can do whatever you want.”

We pass through a city I’ve never heard of that feels like it goes on forever: an anonymous collection of apartment blocks, skyscrapers, commercial buildings, a stretch of luxury-car dealers, Lexus and Mercedes. This part of China, there’s a lot of small manufacturing. Maybe they specialize in something here, like shoestrings, or bra hooks.

Then the countryside again. Green fields. Those five-story, skinny houses with the silver ornaments on top. Low mountains in the distance.

Finally we roll into a town. No skyscrapers here. Just low-slung businesses in beat-up concrete and white tile, dusty, uneven streets. Knots of people going about their business, buying shoes at a run-down shop with sale! signs, lining up for snacks at an open window: Bowls of noodles. Steamed buns.

Sure doesn’t look much like Hollywood.

We head out of the main drag. The street widens, the buildings thin. Now we’re in an area with what look like warehouses or small factories, lined up like Lego bricks. There are billboards with photos and drawings of traditional Chinese furniture. Maybe they make it here.

In the middle of all this cinder block and corrugated metal is an expanse of gleaming red-and-grey marble.

“Not a very good hotel, but the best one in this town,” Meimei says.

“Cool,” I say. I hope she’s paying.

“Do you have anything you want to drop off?” she asks.

“No, not really.”

I mean, all I have is my little daypack with my laptop, a few pairs of underwear, and a clean T-shirt. Not a lot to carry. And I don’t leave my laptop in a hotel unattended. Ever.

“Then, after we check in, do you want to go to the filming base?”

“Sure,” I say. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

It looks like we’re going to a theme park, or to some huge temple complex: high red walls, a row of ticket windows topped by a peaked tile roof, signboards with maps of the area and prices of various attractions, a huge expanse of parking lot. People, almost all Chinese, wait in lines to buy tickets. They make money here off tourism, like Universal Studios, I guess, except there’s no Jurassic Park ride.

“We can’t take the Hummer inside,” Meimei informs me. “But we can have an electric cart, I think.”

I nod. I’m kind of distracted. I had to show my passport to register at the hotel, and it’s never been clear to me if there’s some kind of central database where all that information goes.

If it’s just local, I should be fine. But if it’s national?

What are the odds that Uncle Yang would be plugged into that system?

It’s probably just local, I tell myself. For all the hukou and ID checking they do here, you’re always reading about how people wanted for a crime in one province hide out in another, because the different PSBs don’t talk to each other.

Nobody’s that organized. Not China. Not the US.

Yet.

The driver lets us off by this big red gate that looks like the entrance to the Forbidden City off Tiananmen Square, except no giant painting of Chairman Mao. My written Chinese sucks, especially when it’s traditional characters, but I recognize this set of gold characters on blue: ming/qing imperial park.

Inside the white arched entry are steel rails guiding visitors into several different lines: team passage, individual passage, and vip channel.

That last one would be us.

Inside, a wide expanse of browning grass gives way to a bricked path leading up to a red gate that is a dead ringer for the Gate of Heavenly Peace at Tiananmen. On the way there are stalls where you can shoot fake machine guns or arrows at targets, a sort of bumper-car ride where the lone guest reclines in his little car and texts on his cell phone, giant cardboard cutouts of famous movie stars that you can pose next to. Tourists cruise around in pedal-powered carts with yellow canopies.

We get an electric golf cart. I let Meimei drive.

“So where are they filming?” I ask.

“Further away. In the old Qing/Ming village section.”

“What’s the movie about, do you know?”

“Not really. I think maybe they are using a story taking place in the past to comment on the present.” Meimei raises an eyebrow and rolls her eyes. “So common.”

We cruise up the path past the fake Forbidden City. It looks pretty good from a distance, but when you get up close, you can see the peeling paint on the red walls, the concrete in place of marble walkways, crumbling plaster on the “brass” statues.

Meimei has to stop several times to study a map-“I’ve never been here before,” she tells me, and this place is big. The fake Forbidden City has courtyards and palaces and galleries like the real one; there are temples and guard towers, an imperial garden with giant rocks and artificial streams. A couple of times we pass groups of tourists dressed up in court costumes, posing for photos. I hear a blare of recorded music, a show going on to entertain the visitors, “Qing soldiers” on horseback performing in a dirt arena-but parts of the complex feel deserted. You’d think there’d be a squadron of teenage security guards in polyester uniforms, but no.

Finally we hum past a big crane thing, and I see giant lights with petal-like flaps on tall stands, translucent white sheets stretched on rectangular metal frames to diffuse the light, two cameras on dollies. Meimei pulls the cart up against a wall, and we get out.

A village set, grey brick buildings. Crews carrying messenger bags and wearing belts weighed down with equipment and walkie-talkies move lights. A makeup girl adds some dirt to the face of an actress wearing bloody rags and helps her to her feet. The actress takes her place by a fancy-looking gate-the front of a mansion, it looks like.

“Zhunbei!” a woman with a megaphone yells. “Ji zhu!”

Get ready. Start cameras.

“Kaishi!” Begin. Which I guess means “Action” here.

Another woman slaps one of those film clapboards, the kind you see in every movie or TV show ever made about Hollywood.

The actress stumbles through the scenery, breathing hard, like she’s being chased and doesn’t have the energy to run anymore.

Then, from the opposite direction, a white guy in an old-fashioned suit strides into frame. Sees the girl. Grabs her arm. Slaps her across the face.

It takes me a minute to recognize him, because he’s got on a blond wig and a fake handlebar mustache. Marsh.

She falls to the ground, sobbing. Three guys run in from the direction she came, like they were the ones chasing her: two guys dressed like early-twentieth-century Shanghai gangsters and another in a uniform-maybe he’s supposed to be a cop. They swarm the girl and pull her to her feet.

“Ting ji!”

Cut.

Everyone relaxes. One of the “gangsters” gives the girl a friendly pat on the shoulder and says something I can’t hear. She laughs loudly.

“Hey!”

It’s Marsh. He’s spotted me. Gives a little wave and ambles over.

“Glad you could make it.”

“You’re an actor?”

He guffaws. “Nah. But we needed an evil Western imperialist, and the guy who was gonna do it bailed. Got a gig pretending to be an American partner in a Chinese start-up, to impress the Chinese clients, you know, for meetings. Guess he spends most days wearing a suit, watching movies, and playing video games on his laptop.”

He looks me up and down.

“You want a part? I’m supposed to have a wife. She’s dreadfully unhappy and addicted to opium. I bet you’d kill it.”

I don’t tell him to go fuck himself.

And people say I have no self-control.

“No thanks.”

“Hello, Marsh,” Meimei says. “I think you make a very good imperialist.”

He does a half bow. “Thanks. Hey, we could find a part for you if you want. There’s usually some girl who likes wearing pants in these movies.”

“Hmmm.” Meimei smiles at him. “Perhaps, if this part is well written, I might consider it.”

“Gugu around?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Marsh cocks his head to one side. “Over there, by the herbal-medicine store.”

I limp down the fake Qing town street, past the light stands and the cameras.

There’s Gugu, sprawled in a director’s chair. He’s wearing sunglasses and another one of his overpriced hipster outfits, engrossed in what looks like a script.

Hovering at his side is Betty, definitely among the living, wearing that same rhinestone-studded Ed Hardy trucker hat with the skulls and roses she had on at Gugu’s party.

Betty, who sounded terrified when I called her the day after Tiantian’s party. Whose friend (frenemy?) Celine is dead.

I think I need to have a conversation with Betty.

“Gugu, ni hao,” I say.

He looks up from his script, seeming annoyed by the interruption, until he recognizes me. “Oh, it’s you,” he says.

He sounds a little friendlier than I expected. At least he’s making an effort to put on a decent act.

Betty, on the other hand, looks startled and wary. She blinks a few times. Like maybe I’m this hallucination that she hopes will vanish.

“Hi, Betty,” I say. “Hao jiu bujian.” Long time no see.

She nods, too quickly.

“I’m happy you could come down,” Gugu says. “And sorry that we haven’t yet had a serious talk about my father’s museum.”

Well, this is a first-I think Gugu is actually sober.

“Maybe on this trip,” I say. “Later, when you’re not so busy.”

He nods. “Yes. After we finish filming for the day, we can discuss.”

I wonder, does he know about Celine? I mean, assuming he didn’t kill her, does he know that she’s dead? Do any of them?

“Hey, Guwei!” One of the crew, a young guy with a shaved head, pierced ears, and a visible tat on his forearm, jogs over. “You yige xiao wenti,” he says, leaning over the chair-there’s a small problem. He goes on about something involving an actress and a location that I can’t quite make out.

Betty sidesteps away from Gugu, then turns and double-times it down the fake Qing street, away from Gugu’s set.

Whenever people want to get away from me, I figure they know something they’d rather I didn’t find out about.

“Hey, I’ll get out of your way and let you do your work,” I say to Gugu. “Looking forward to catching up later.”

He nods, distracted, and turns back to his conversation.

I take off after Betty.

So here’s a big problem with me playing Nancy Drew: just about anybody who’s in decent shape with two good legs can run faster than me.

Not that Betty’s running, exactly. But she’s walking really fast, and I almost lose her in a crowd of costumed extras heading up the street. Luckily, the rhinestone trucker cap stands out in a crowd of Qing-dynasty peasants hauling baskets and carry poles across their shoulders.

I make my way through the extras, up the street, and see Betty take a turn down an alley to the right.

“Hey!” I call out. “Deng yihuir!” I’m jogging now, my chest already burning from the smog. “I need to talk to you. About Celine.”

I see her at the end of the alley. She half turns, pauses, her eyes wide with an emotion I can’t read-fear? grief?-and for a moment I think she’s actually going to talk to me.

Instead she pivots and takes off.

I almost throw in the towel right there. Because I can catch up with her later, right? But I don’t. Because… I don’t know, I’m pissed off. I’m tired of not having any answers, and I don’t want to wait anymore.

Besides, now I see she’s wearing these stupid platform versions of Chuck Taylors, and that means she can’t run all that much faster than I can.

The alley leads into another village street, this one with a temple and a teahouse and a sign for something called the “Ningbo Cathouse.” Old Shanghai cigarette ads are pasted up on the walls. Maybe we’re out of the Qing dynasty now? There’s a little production set up here, nowhere near the scale of Gugu’s, just a single camera and a diffuser and two actors, a young guy lying on the ground with a bloody shirt and a girl cradling his head in her lap, weeping. A small group of tourists in matching baseball caps stand around, watching the scene. No one pays any attention as I jog past after Betty. Maybe it was a rehearsal.

I see her circle the temple, running awkwardly in her goofy platform sneakers. My leg is cramping up, my daypack’s bouncing against my back, and my lungs are screaming for some breathable air, but I am catching up to her, and I am not giving up.

I reach the back of the temple. There’s Betty not too far ahead, going down a street flanked by a low grey wall on the left and an artificial lake on the right. Across the lake I see a giant hot-air balloon. Don’t ask me what dynasty that’s supposed to be from.

Up ahead, the path we’re on dead-ends into another wall, a taller one this time, like maybe we’ve reached the rear of the lot, a road running along in a T intersection, one way along the “lake,” the other heading back into the sets.

I am so close now. “Hey, I just want to talk to you!” I gasp as she starts to turn left, toward the sets. She totters a bit on an uneven flagstone, and I think, I am going to catch her, and she’s going to talk to me, and I’m going to get some answers, finally.

That’s when one of those bicycle carts wobbles down the road from the opposite direction, the two teenagers driving it giggling and swerving and taking selfies, and I have to throw out my arms to keep from running into it, and my palms bang into the frame, sending shock waves up to my elbows.

“Fuck!”

“Duibuqi, buhao yisi,” one of them says, looking like she’s actually sorry, while the other giggles with her hand over her mouth.

“Mei shi,” I manage. It’s not important.

I steady myself, take a deep breath, cough a few times, and hobble off.

Up ahead there’s a big signboard with arrows pointing in all different directions: imperial palace, prince’s garden, ming street, old guangzhou. No sign of Betty.

“Shit,” I mutter. If I had something to throw, I’d throw it.

But I’ve got time. She’s here with Gugu. Where’s she going to go?

She can’t run forever.