Dragon Day

Chapter Twenty Four

★

“I, uh. .. seriously?”

“Of course,” Sidney says. He spreads his hands, at the room, at his kids, I don’t know what. “Anything you say does not leave this room.”

And that’s supposed to make me feel better?

I look at them all. Tiantian, sitting rigidly on one of the mini-couches, hands covering his knees. Gugu, slumped and defeated. Meimei, leaning against the hard cushion and sculpted chair back in a pose of relaxation. I’m pretty sure she’s not actually relaxed.

Sidney, meanwhile, just stands there, hands clasped in front of him. He isn’t smiling like he usually is. There’s no expression on his face at all.

I think of that guy I saw dying right in front of me a couple months ago, because of Sidney.

“Okay, fine. Whatever,” I say. I don’t even care anymore.

“There was a girl at Tiantian’s party. One of the waitresses. I guess sometimes she worked late. Sold a little doufu. She was just doing what she could do, because she lived in a fucking box in a basement and she wanted something better.”

No one moves.

“She ended up dead, dumped on a pile of garbage.”

Now I turn to Sidney. Because he’s the one who wanted to know.

“I think Tiantian killed her,” I say.

“Why do you think this?” Sidney asks me, his voice low.

“Because he has a reputation for visiting xiaojie. And for hurting them.”

Tiantian half rises from his chair, color flaring on his cheeks. “These are nothing but lies. You have no proof of this.”

I shrug. “No one asked me for proof. That part’s not my job. You know who could prove it, though?” I laugh. “Celine. She saw something that night. But she’s dead, too. Did you know Celine was dead, Gugu?”

Gugu sits up, the blood drained from his face as if someone pulled a plug. “I… no.”

I feel bad for a moment. I think he’s telling the truth. And he may be a privileged asshole, but nobody needs to find out the way he just did that someone he knew has died.

But he’s still an asshole, so fuck him.

“Yeah. Drug overdose. Right after you left that gallery party. Funny how that works. Maybe we can ask Marsh about it. He around?”

Gugu looks like someone slapped him across the face and he’s still trying to absorb the blow.

Sidney nods, his eyes a little narrowed. Making a calculation. “Yes. He is here. But he is not family. First I think we can talk to Dao Ming.”

Now we’re having a real party.

The butler comes in and asks us what we want to drink. I ask for a beer. Sidney’s serving Rogue Dead Guy Ale, and it even tastes fresh.

I drink it as we wait for Dao Ming to arrive.

Dao Ming’s wearing black: black slacks and a short-sleeved black mock turtleneck. She stands in the doorway looking around the room, her eyes wild, like they’re taking up more space than they were meant to.

Finally she sits in a chair that’s catty-corner to Tiantian. As far away from him as she can get.

This time I say it in Chinese. “I know this. At Tiantian’s party a fuwuyuan died. She served as a prostitute. I think Tiantian killed her. I don’t know what the rest of you know.”

“This is not true!” Tiantian snarls, the red on his cheeks getting deep and dark.

Dao Ming twitches in her chair. “He likes xiaojie,” she spits out. “Don’t lie,” she says to her husband. “I know what you do. You do it with these girls. You do it all the time.”

“I didn’t…”

I roll my eyes. “Everyone knows you did.”

“I did not kill her!”

“But you beat her, right? You choked her. You get off on that kind of thing. Don’t you.”

I am pretty sure Tiantian’s going to bolt out of his chair right then and launch himself at me, and I’m thinking, Bring it on, asshole, but Dao Ming rises first.

“He broke the rules,” she says, biting off each word. “He had these girls at our house. Our house!” She strides over to Tiantian and gets in his face, pushing and shoving him with each word. “That’s not allowed! How dare you humiliate me that way? How dare you!” Now she slaps him across the face. He raises his hands to protect himself, and she just keeps hitting him.

Finally she stops. Like she’s too exhausted to continue. He remains frozen for a moment, his raised hands in front of his face, palms out.

She turns to me, still breathing hard, cords in her neck standing out like twisted wires.

“Yes, he beat her,” she says. “He choked her. I found her, after. She was half dead, crying and carrying on. So I put her out of her misery. It was an act of mercy.”

The beer roils in my gut, and I feel like I’m going to puke. I grab my pack, turn without a word, and I walk out of the room. No one tries to stop me.