Dragon Day

Chapter Twenty One

★

It’s not completely dark. There are work lights here and there, casting a dim glow that lets me see concrete pillars, stacked scenery flats, odd bits of props and equipment, a costume rack, spread out in this huge space running under the pagoda and beyond-it has to be over the size of a football field. Nobody’s working down here right now that I can see, though. There’s a small square of light on the other side.

I peel off the robe and toss it over a costume rack, throw the hat in its general direction. It’s not like I really care about the deposit.

I head toward the square of light.

I’m about halfway there when I see that it’s an exit, only this one has its rust-red metal gate closed. Doesn’t mean it’s locked, I tell myself. But if it is?

That’s when I hear footsteps. Behind me, I think. With the echo it’s hard to tell.

Could be anybody. Could be the guy. Could be a worker. I start jogging toward the exit. Not a full-on run, an “I’m working, gotta get somewhere” trot. To my left there’s a couple restaurant-freezer-size metal things painted submarine grey. Generators? They hum. A bundle of cables the thickness of a python runs from them along the floor to the right.

Okay, they have to be going someplace. Like out of here.

What I can see by the work lights is that the cables run over to the far wall and into a corridor. I can’t see where that goes.

I jog alongside the cables.

When I get to the far wall, I see that the corridor slopes gently up, a long ramp into sunlight. The cables snake up with it.

I reach the top, and I stand in the entrance for a second, blinking in the late-afternoon light, and there’s a volley of gunfire.

“Ting ji!”

I fall back against the wall, and I almost go to the ground before I get a grip: It’s a set. This is a film. The cables lead to lights and cameras. Between them I can see a half dozen actors dressed in Republic-era police costumes and one guy, presumably the revolutionary hero, all dropping their guns to their sides and shuffling around, waiting for the next take.

I circle the area of the action, a square in what looks like an Old Hong Kong or Old Guangdong set. As I look back, I see the stocky guy with the work jacket approaching one of the crew, a young woman with dyed pink hair who is carrying a clipboard. He has a couple rifles propped on his shoulder. Maybe he picked them up under the pagoda.

Not a bad guy. Just a crew member delivering props.

“It’s only a fucking movie,” I mutter.

I need to find the exit and get out of here before it turns into something else.

I find an exit. It’s not the way I came in. Smaller, without the crowds and tour buses. Across the street is a line of beat-up two-story shops: a noodle joint, a little convenience store, and a drugstore. Beyond that, another busier-looking street. No cabs in sight.

I walk over to the convenience store and buy a bag of spicy peanuts and a bottle of water. “Please, can you tell me, how do I get to the train station?” I ask the clerk.

“No train station here. You have to go to the city for that.”

Which is how I end up first on a shuttle bus next to a twenty-something girl whose suitcases are piled where my feet should be, then on a city bus so crammed with people that I can barely lift my arm to drink my water, old metal sheets rattling over every bump, diesel fumes leaking in through the cracks. I look around at the riders on the bus: office workers, nongmin peasant farmers, students, a couple old aunties, some guys in oil-stained coveralls, a few little kids, ordinary people just trying to get through the day, all of us squeezed together in this jolting, shuddering tin can, and I think, Far cry from a fucking Hummer limo, right?

But maybe this is where I belong. Maybe even where I’d rather be.

I just make the last train to Shanghai, a two-and-a-half-hour ride that will get me into Hongqiao station around 10:00 p.m. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.

I’m thinking I panicked, and maybe I should’ve stayed at Movie Universe. I don’t know that Tiantian’s driver was connected to Uncle Yang-he could just be a driver, like that film-crew guy was just a film-crew guy.

I’ve been so cranked up for so long that I’m thinking movies are real and seeing bandits that aren’t there.

Maybe Tiantian just wanted to talk to me, and Sidney sure as shit expects me to talk to Tiantian.

I lean back in my seat, which isn’t bad-this is one of the new fast trains. Close my eyes. Think about what I know.

Celine saw something bad and told Betty to watch out for all the Caos, but especially Tiantian.

So does that mean Tiantian killed the waitress?

“The waitress.” I can’t even remember her name.

Celine promised that she’d cause trouble for the guilty. That they would get what they deserved. Eventually anyway.

I think about that one. Who’s causing trouble here? That would be me. And John. John because I got him involved.

And why am I causing trouble? Because my card was found on the body of a dead girl.

If my card hadn’t been there, would the body ever have been traced back to the Caos?

Maybe that wasn’t about implicating me in a murder. Maybe it was about my weird skill set of pissing people off and causing trouble without meaning to.

Lastly: when Betty left the art gallery with Gugu, Celine was still alive and Marsh was there with her.

Why was I at Tiantian’s party in the first place?

Because Sidney asked me to look into Marsh.

You don’t know that Marsh killed Celine, I tell myself. She could’ve OD’d on her own, without his help.

I don’t know anything for sure, but what do I think?

I think Tiantian killed the waitress and Marsh killed Celine.

But here’s the part that doesn’t fit. Why would Marsh care enough about protecting Tiantian that he’d kill Celine to do it?

So what do I do now?

Once I get to Shanghai, I’ve got the same problem I had in Beijing with staying off Uncle Yang’s radar-if I check in to a hotel, I have to show my passport. Maybe I’m being too paranoid about that, but as we all know, it’s not paranoia when they really are following you, right?

I could crash in a bathhouse. They’re not what you might think; there’s a side for women and a side for men and meeting rooms where you can meet up and hang out if you want. I’ve done it before, gotten a massage, sweated in the steam room; I could see an acupuncturist or even get a facial and just kill time in one of the meeting rooms in a bathrobe and slippers, doze in a reclining chair in front of a TV broadcasting the latest Korean soap.

I could call a friend. I have a few in Shanghai. Most notably Lucy Wu. I trust Lucy. Well, as much as I trust anybody. What I don’t want to do is get her dragged into my shit.

She already is pretty tangled up in a lot of it. She’s my partner in selling Lao Zhang’s work. She’s his friend, I’m pretty sure one of his exes. That stopped bothering me a long time ago.

I start thinking about it all again, though, about me and Lao Zhang, what we ever really were to each other, what it all means, and then I shake myself. This is not the time.

Okay, I can find someplace to crash tonight. At Lucy’s, at a bathhouse, whatever. But ever since Tiantian’s party-ever since I got sucked into Sidney World, really-I’ve only been able to think about what I do next. Where I go. How I get out of whatever fucked-up situation I’m in at the moment. I need to think beyond “Where am I going to sleep tonight?”

I need to draw this thing to a close, one way or another.

So what are my choices?

Do I call one of the Caos and start this circus all over again? Hang out with Gugu and Meimei and wonder when Tiantian’s going to sic Uncle Yang on me? I mean, what are the odds that I’m going to find out any more than I already know? That Tiantian’s suddenly going to break down and confess all or that one of his siblings will rat on him-that is, if they know anything about what happened.

Fuck that. I’m done.

Like always, I think about running.

But there’s my mom and Andy and Mimi, on their forced vacation in Xingfu Cun.

Whatever I do, I have to get them out of there first.

“Hi, Sidney.”

“Ellie. Do you have news for me?”

“Yes, I do.” I pause. Stare out the window at the dark landscape, the anonymous towns and half-completed high-rises passing by like ghosts of some imagined future.

“Here’s the thing,” I say. “We need to talk in person.”

“This is not difficult. You can come to Xingfu Cun.”

“Yeah. I will. No problem.”

I stare out the window some more. Think, I’m on a train to nowhere.

Time to get off.

“I’ll come to Xingfu Cun, and I’ll tell you what I found out. But you need to let my mom and her boyfriend and my dog be on their way.”

There’s a long silence.

“I already tell you, I am just keeping them safe.”

“I know. And I appreciate that. I just… I don’t want them involved in this.”

“Okay,” he says. “You can tell me where you are, and I can send the car or the plane. Then you can come to Xingfu Cun, say hello to your mother before she leave.”

“How about this? You send your car or your plane. When I meet it, you let them go.”

Another stretch of silence.

“If this is what you want,” he finally says.

“I do.”

“I only hope you have something interesting to tell me,” he says.

Yeah. So do I.

I end up calling Lucy Wu.

I don’t want to get her in trouble. I really don’t. I tell myself one of the reasons I want to see her is to give her the debriefing. If she stays involved with Sidney, she should know what she’s stepped in.

I tell myself that, but the truth is, I’d like to see a friendly face before I go off to confront Sidney in Xingfu Cun.

I call on my safe number. She’s not going to recognize it, so who knows if she’ll answer?

But she does. “Wei?”

“Lucy, it’s Ellie. Are you free later? There’s some things I need to talk to you about.”