Dragon Day

Chapter Twenty Seven

★

You know how they say things happen in a blur? Not for me, not this time anyway. I remember all of it. But it’s like I can’t feel it properly, like I’m watching the whole thing through a pane of glass.

I killed a guy. Somebody I knew. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe I really didn’t have a choice. But I could tell by the way he held his gun, he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing.

I did.

“Don’t worry,” Meimei tells me.

“How are we going to explain this?”

“Easy. I was… target shooting.”

“Target shooting?”

“Sure. My father has guns, as you can see. He likes to shoot sometimes.” Her nose wrinkles. “He’s not very good at it.”

We’re standing there by the body. By Marsh. I keep expecting people to show up, to come running down. I mean, there was live fire. Wouldn’t somebody notice?

Maybe Meimei’s target-shooting story is more believable than I thought.

“So… why did you have a gun?” I ask. “I mean, really. Don’t tell me you were going target shooting.”

“I saw Marsh leave, and I suspected something. So I took one of my father’s guns and followed him. When he went after you, I knew to go around another way.”

She’s a cool customer. Either she’s telling the truth or she had her story worked out in advance.

“Where’d he get the gun? Marsh. One of your father’s?”

She does a little shrug. “I don’t know. But I think from Tiantian. You can get guns in China, if you know the right person. If you have money.”

“And Tiantian told him to kill me?”

“I doubt if he told him that. Just to… take care of the problem.”

I stare down at the body. Flies are starting to land on it, their buzzing louder than the ringing in my ears. “What do we do now?”

“We call the police.” She looks like she’s thinking it over, but I’m pretty sure she already has something figured out. “We say Marsh tried to kill you. I saw it, too. Perhaps he would have killed me as well, but you stopped him.”

“Why? I mean, what do we tell them? Why was he trying to kill me?”

“What he told you. That he wished to blame you for that fuwuyuan’s death.” She pretends to think about it some more. “We can say he admitted to killing her. And that I heard him confess this to you.”

“You think the police are going to believe all that?”

Now she laughs, a light chuckle. “If my father wants them to, they will.”

“And Tiantian and Dao Ming? They just walk?”

“Of course,” she says. “What would you expect?”

Justice, I think. But truth be told, that’s not what I expect. It’s what I want. And I already know I’m not going to get it.

Meimei gets out her iPhone. “I’m going to call for help,” she says. Her finger hovers above the touch screen. Then she stops and clasps her hands, the phone held between them.

“I will share something with you,” she says. “Tiantian does not like my father. Or trust him. He is afraid that he won’t receive my father’s money and businesses when he dies. In Tiantian’s mind, if someone must be blamed for this girl’s death, let it be an associate of my father’s. Especially let it be someone who tempts my father into spending his money on some crazy projects, like this museum.”

I decide not to mention this new idea Sidney has to give away his entire fortune. “But he’s a billionaire,” I say. “It’s not like the museum will take up all his money.”

“True. But Tiantian can’t see things that way. He’s always been terrible at sharing.”

She smiles. This time I think I’m finally seeing her real smile, and it’s cold.

“Now Tiantian will never get what he wants,” she says.

It hits me all at once that if anyone inherits Sidney’s empire, it’s going to be Meimei.

I don’t know what to do with the gun. I don’t want to carry it; I don’t want to touch it anymore. But I can’t just leave it lying around or tossed in the dirt. It’s a weapon. It killed someone.

I killed someone.

You had to do it, I tell myself.

The gun is also evidence.

So I take it with me as we walk up the path that leads to the gardens at the back of Sidney’s fake French palace, carrying it cradled in both my hands.

When we get to the house, Sidney is waiting for us on the terrace. “Fashengle shenme shi?” What happened?

“Marsh tried to kill her,” Meimei says. “He might have killed me, too.”

“But… why?”

“He works for Tiantian as well as Gugu.” Funny thing, now I hear emotion in her voice. A ragged edge of anger.

Sidney starts to say something, I don’t know what. Some form of denial, I’m guessing. But he doesn’t get there. He stops himself, covers his face with his hands for a moment. “Duibuqi, Meimei. Qing raoshu wo ba.” Please forgive me.

Maybe he’s thinking about how he could have lost her.

He turns to me and just shakes his head. “I am very sorry, Ellie. This should not have happened.”

Things go down the way Meimei said they would.

The police come. Meimei puts on a little show for them. It’s pitch-perfect: she’s not quite hysterical, just slightly breathless, and shaken. “I still can’t believe it,” she says more than once. “He was completely crazy!”

As Meimei suggested, I tell them pretty much what happened, with a few key additions and omissions. They don’t speak much English, so I tell them in a mix of English and Chinese, with Meimei filling in some of the Chinese details. They don’t separate us to keep us from getting our stories straight. They don’t even try. They ask me to write out an account of what happened and why, and I do that.

I went for a walk. Ran into Marsh. He said something to me about the dead girl. How he needed someone to blame. I was able to get away, distract him with the paint gun. That’s when Meimei showed up, to go target shooting.

“I gave her the gun, because she was a soldier,” Meimei tells the police. “I knew she could shoot better than I.”

One of the policeman nods. “Americans all have guns anyway,” he says to his partner. “Of course they know how to shoot.”

I still have to wonder if Meimei set Marsh up. Pretended to make some kind of deal with him. Kill her to save yourself. Kill her and you can fix things for me, too.

I don’t think she wanted me dead. But maybe she wanted to use me to kill.

Guess I’ll never know, because it’s not like I’m going to ask.

Here’s how I get out of Xingfu Cun.

John shows up.

It’s been a few hours, late afternoon, the sun heading for the hills on the left end of the vineyard. The PSB is still here, more of them now, technicians or people pretending to be them who convoy down the hill to the paintball course, carrying cameras and evidence bags. A little while ago, I watched one of them bag the revolver I used. Now I’m standing out at the back of the garden watching them. Same spot I was in when Marsh found me. I’m finding it hard to believe that there’s actually a CSI: Xingfu Cun, but I could be wrong.

Nobody’s told me that I can’t leave yet, but then I haven’t asked.

“Ellie.”

I turn, and there’s John, dressed in his usual snug black T-shirt and black jeans.

“Hi,” I say. “Thanks for coming.”

He doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.

“I talk to the police here,” John finally says. “They say you cooperate well with them.”

“I gave them a statement.”

“I think it’s okay if we leave now.” John slips his hands into his front jeans pockets. “If you want.”

“Yeah. I want to leave.”

Before I leave, I figure I’d better have one last word with Sidney.

I find him sitting behind his massive carved desk in the wood-paneled room lined with bookcases, the room with the giant stuffed deer head. Maybe it actually is his office, and not just for show. Vicky Huang is there, too, sitting on the couch with her ever-present iPad, taking notes.

Sidney rises when I come in. Gestures at one of the leather club chairs.

I shake my head. “I’m going now,” I say.

I’m a little curious to see if he tries to stop me.

“I am making certain arrangements,” Sidney says. “I do my best so Yang Junmin won’t bother you or your family.”

“Thanks.”

He shakes his head and waves his hands in that little brusque gesture that won’t allow any discussion. “I cannot do business with him anymore.”

“And Tiantian?”

Now Sidney sits back down. “He has made his choice,” he says curtly. “He is not my child.”

In spite of everything that’s happened, in spite of feeling mostly numb, I still have this weird corner of sympathy for him. “Meimei’s really smart,” I say. “She could help you run things. And Gugu…”

What can I say about Gugu?

I think about how he was yesterday on the set, how focused and… well, sober he was. I think about the night he went to the gallery, because he wanted to learn about art, even if he was too drunk to appreciate it.

“He’s okay,” I say. “He’s interested in art. I think he’d like to work with you. If you’ll listen to him sometimes.”

Sidney doesn’t say anything. He stares down at his desk, face dark.

I steal a glance at Vicky, who sits there utterly still. It’s funny how a person as pushy as she is can turn into a piece of furniture when she needs to.

“If you’re still planning on the museum,” I say.

Now Sidney looks up. “Of course. Even more.” He spreads his hands. “This will all belong to the people.”

I think about the mansion, the art, the vineyards and private jet, a mostly empty “village,” all that money, and I wonder what the people are going to do with it all.

I don’t know where John got the car, a slightly beat-up black VW Santana. I don’t think it could be his: not enough time from when I called this morning for him to drive down from Beijing to Anhui.

We drive a few hours to Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, not saying much on the ride.

“What you tell the police,” John says after a while. “Is that true?”

“Pretty much. Except Marsh didn’t kill Wang Junyi. Dao Ming did.”

He draws in a startled breath. “Dao Ming?”

“Yeah, after Tiantian beat Junyi half to death.”

Another long silence.

“You shoot him?” he finally asks.

“Yeah. He had a gun. He said he was going to kill me, like I told the police.” I look down at my hands, clasped loosely in my lap, and I can still feel the weight of the revolver there, if I let myself.

“Why did you go alone, Ellie? Why didn’t you wait for me? I might have-”

“Yeah, well, you might not have,” I snap back. “You might have brought Yang Junmin’s army down on us.”

Anyhow, I don’t want to think about a different way it might have gone. One where I didn’t kill anybody.