Hour of the Rat

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I WAKE UP BECAUSE the dog barks.

I lift my head, and I see John and the dog by the door. He has the dog on the leash, and the dog is doing this excited hopping and circling, from her back to her front legs. She barks again. A happy bark.

“Sorry!” John says in a low voice. “I just take her outside. For walk. I already give her antibiotic,” he adds.

“Thanks.”

After he closes the door, I fall back on the bed. I’m so sore I feel like I’ve been to fucking Taoist boot camp. Or Taoist fucking boot camp. Ha-ha.

I lie there for a while, but I can’t sleep. I think, John will come back soon. Do I want to be lying here in bed when he does? For another round of yin exchange?

I haul my ass out of bed and into the shower.

As I stand under the water, I think of all the reasons why sex with Creepy John was a truly bad idea.

Okay, I’m not completely irresponsible. I know I have this tendency to occasionally hook up with guys I don’t know very well. So I’m on the pill. And I also insist on condoms.

Well, most of the time. Last night being an exception.

I’ve had the hepatitis B vaccination series, so that’s good. There’s a lot of hep B in China. HIV, though… and there’s a lot of HIV here, too.

He’s with the DSD. He’s not going to have HIV. I don’t think.

And, he’s with the DSD. Which I am pretty sure is one for the “truly bad idea” category.

On the other hand, it’s slightly less creepy than if he were just some crazed stalker dude. Right?

How can you be so fucking stupid? I ask myself.

By the time I come out of the shower, pressure bandage rewrapped, dressed in my jeans and a fresh T-shirt, John has returned with the dog.

“Breakfast,” he announces.

Croissants and coffee. On a tray. Un-fucking-believable. “They have all this at the hotel,” he explains, setting it up on the little table. “From European bakery. And very good coffee.”

“You like coffee?”

“Before, not very much. But lately I like more and more.” He smiles at me.

The dog, meanwhile, nuzzles my legs and then sits on my feet.

“She is very affectionate,” John says.

“Yeah.”

“Please, sit. Have coffee.”

I feel this sudden rush of… maybe not anger, but irritation. I don’t want to do anything that John tells me to do.

Except I really want some coffee. And maybe a Percocet.

Is it too early for beer?

I lower myself onto the chair and pick up the cup of coffee. I read somewhere that a study in Japan showed that rats get happier just from smelling coffee. I take a deep breath before I sip.

John sits across from me, holding his coffee cup in his hands. He looks younger somehow. Boyish. A bounce in his step like the dog’s.

Maybe it was all that yin he got last night.

“So where do you want to go now, Yili?”

I shrug. I don’t really know, and I don’t feel like talking about it.

John tears off a piece of his croissant. Hesitates.

“If you tell me a little more, maybe I can help.”

“Look, just fucking lay off me, all right?”

He sits back in his chair. I’m not sure how to read the expression on his face. Is he pissed off? Is he hurt? I can’t tell.

“Okay, last night? You satisfied your curiosity,” I say. “Fine. So did I. But you think that means we’re suddenly all friends and I’m going to trust you? How stupid do you think I am?”

Now he’s angry, and I can tell. He slams his mug on the table, coffee splashing over the sides. “What do you think this is, Ellie? What do you think?”

We stare at each other. I focus on the white scar that cuts across his eyebrow.

I want to say something awful, something nasty, something so mean that he’ll fuck off and out of my life forever.

But I can’t.

“I don’t know,” I say.

AFTER BREAKFAST WE TAKE a walk: me, John, and the dog. We walk on the brick path that runs along the lake-a promenade, I guess you’d call it. There’s one of those grey stone “traditional” fences to keep you from falling in, like you see everywhere in China: square posts with flowers carved at the top, a rail and a slab below, with geometric cutouts. It’s beautiful, and quiet, and we don’t fill the silence by trying to talk. What’s there to say?

But finally I have to say something. I guess I owe him, given that he got me off of the Dali’s Most Wanted Foreigners list.

Unless he was the one who set me up…

But no. I don’t really think that. I don’t know how I feel about John, exactly. But I don’t think he’d do that to me.

“I’m just doing a favor for a friend, that’s all. I didn’t think it was going to get complicated.”

He frowns. “Complicated how?”

“I’m still not sure. But it’s not like… I mean, it’s just a bunch of foreigners, mostly. Nobody’s doing anything against China.”

Of course, neither were my artist friends, last year. But they were Chinese, and it’s not the same.

“Why don’t you want me to help you, Ellie?”

The question drops in the air like a stone.

“Just… It’s something I should do myself, that’s all.”

“Why?” He sounds more frustrated than angry. “Why you have to do everything by yourself?”

I stop walking. I don’t know why. I lean against the stone railing and look at the lake. Wonder if the white bird is out there somewhere.

“I guess because I can’t find anyone to do it with me. No one I can trust anyway.”

I have to give him credit. He doesn’t say some stupid bullshit like, “But you can trust me.” He doesn’t say anything at all.

The dog whimpers a little and settles on my feet. I scratch behind her ears. I’m not really sure what dogs like, but she likes that.

Eventually the three of us start walking again.

“If you want to stay in this room some more time, you can,” he tells me.

“Thanks.”

We stand inside the hotel room: me, John, and the dog. The room’s been cleaned. The bed made. Fresh sheets.

“I go back to Beijing, then,” John says. He hesitates. “I think you are just on vacation. If anyone asks me.”

I look at him standing there, head tilted down, hands hooked in the pockets of his jeans like a sheepish kid.

“There’s something you could do for me,” I say. “I mean, you don’t have to. Just if you want. And if you don’t want to, if it’s too much trouble…”

“Tell me,” he says.

I don’t want to say it. Because it’s like I’m attached and I don’t want to give her up.

“The dog. Can you take her back to Beijing? Make sure she gets her medicine? You can take her to my apartment, to my mom. Just let my mom know what she needs to do. To take care of her.”

I swear it’s like the fucking dog is psychic. She looks up at me. Her eyes are big and gold. She thumps her tail.

“Sure,” John says. “Sure. I can do that.”

“And you won’t… you won’t sell her for hotpot in Guangzhou. Right?”

John draws back. He looks offended. “Of course not.” He holds his hand out, so the dog can sniff it. “The tradition of eating dogs is old-fashioned and uncivilized. China needs to abandon this, as part of modernization.”

“And cats?”

“Certainly we should not eat cats. They do not even taste good.”

THE DOG CLIMBS INTO John’s silver Toyota without much fuss and curls up on the backseat.

“Be good, dog,” I tell her, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t understand English. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

She nuzzles my hand, thumps her tail.

John stands by the open door of the driver’s side, hands clasped in front of him, like he doesn’t know what do with them. “Don’t worry. I will take good care of her.”

“Thanks.”

“If you have any troubles, call me.”

“I will.”

We stand there for a moment. Then he nods, gets into the car, and starts the engine.

Who is this guy? I still can’t figure him out.

I watch the car pull away, hear the dog whine and bark once, twice. Then the car turns down a narrow lane, and I can’t see it anymore.

Now what?

I GO BACK INSIDE the hotel room and look around. It’s a nice room. Nicer than the places I usually stay. Maybe I’ll take John up on his offer. Stay here a few days longer.

And do what?

I made a big deal to John about how I had this thing I needed to do, something I had to do by myself, without him. How I had to help a friend.

But what can I actually do about it?

I make a mental list.

I can go back to the Dali Perfect Inn, see if they have any contact info for Jason/David/Langhai. I can search the Web to see if he’s uploaded any new videos. And I can go to New Dali and check out the Modern Scientific Seed Company.

I fall back on the bed with a sigh. I really don’t feel like doing any of this, except for maybe the Internet search, because I don’t have to go anywhere to do that. But after getting on my high horse and telling John I was on this big fucking mission…

I guess I have to try.

I make myself a cup of Starbucks VIA and boot up my battered laptop. Go to Langhai’s stream on Youku.

And fuck me if there isn’t a new video.

I settle back in my chair, heart thumping, fingers twitching, and I grin, because I’ve been hunting this guy and here’s a trail of bread crumbs. I click on the video.

Another field of grain, manipulated so the sky is dark and the grain glowing yellow, outlined in black.

“The Truth About Eos in China,” the title says. In English.

“This is what you need to know,” a man says. American. He sounds young. Ragged, on the edge of exhaustion.

Jason?

“Eos has a joint venture with Hongxing Agricultural Products. They’re working on developing GMOs for the Chinese market. Especially rice.”

There’s a shot of a bag of New Century Hero Rice. The farmer smiling, raising his hoe like a rifle.

“They’re putting this stuff on the market illegally. Without permission. Hiding what they’re doing in places like Guiyu, where no one would think of looking.”

Shots of Guiyu. Of tainted fields surrounded by smoking electronic scrap. Of the New Century Seeds storefront, the electronics workshop where I ran into Mr. Piggy, who subsequently arranged to have my ass kicked, I’m pretty sure.

“In Yunnan, one of China’s breadbaskets.”

I think I recognize the landscape, the green fields and hills around Dali. Then a shot of another storefront, in the middle of a typical Chinese city street. The camera lingers on it long enough for me to take in a cartoon graphic on the window-a dancing tomato tangoing with an ear of corn. The supered title reads: “Modern Scientific Seed Company. Dali, Yunnan.”

“Eos has its people working in the US government, in the Department of Agriculture, in the FDA, making sure their products get approved with minimal oversight.” A slide of names and positions. Most of them I don’t recognize-I mean, who knows the names of deputy directors of the FDA and US Trade Policy Committee members?-but isn’t that one a Supreme Court judge? “It works the other way, too-Eos employs former congressional and White House staffers as lobbyists-they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions.”

A photo of some old white dude, with a name beneath it and FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE NOW ON BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

“And in China? Who knows how it works?”

A slide of the Great Wall with a big red question mark supered over it.

“These people are trying to control the global food supply,” he says urgently. “I know that sounds crazy.”

Yeah, well, kind of. I get that the stuff they’re making maybe isn’t safe. But control the food supply all over the world? I mean, nobody can do that.

It’s like he’s reading my mind.

“They own the patents. If their stuff contaminates other crops, they can claim they own those, too. That the farmer owes them money. That the farmer has to buy their seeds.”

More PowerPoint slides. A list of citations. Things like “Eos Sues Farmer for Patent Infringement.” “Farmer Claims Eos Corn Contaminated His Fields.”

“There’s a tipping point that happens,” Jason says, because it has to be him, right? “Like with soybeans in the US. GMO soy is ninety percent of all the soybeans planted in the US. Ninety percent! And if GMOs get a foothold here? In China?”

In China, where they barely regulate food safety. Where restaurants use sewer oil and pork glows in the dark. Where milk powder poisons babies.

“We won’t have a choice anymore. They’ll own us. All of us.”

He’s manic-depressive, right? Paranoid. A criminal.

I know you are, but what am I? Ha-ha.

“I don’t know if anyone will see this,” Jason says. “I’m putting it out there, hoping somebody does. I have proof. I can prove it all.”

AFTER THAT I LOOK around the elegant room, and I realize that there’s no way I’m going to stay here.

It’s too bad. It’s nice. Quiet. And this has got to be one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept on. But I want to pick up those bread crumbs. Even if Jason’s crazy, like Natalie says and like he kind of sounds on that video. Maybe especially if he is.

Maybe even more if he’s not.

I can go to both the Dali Perfect Inn and Modern Scientific Seed Company today and, if I don’t learn anything, get out of Dali tonight. I’m not sure what time the train to Kunming leaves, but there are long-distance buses going there every couple of hours.

Besides, being here by myself… it doesn’t feel right.

I miss the dog. Maybe I even miss Creepy John.

I DECIDE TO GO to the Dali Perfect Inn first. It takes about as long to get to the old town as it does to get to the new city from Shuanglang, at least according to Google Maps; I just have to go back the way I came, west and then south around the lake. I figure it’s better to start there, at the hotel, where there are less likely to be thugs with iron rods.

The front desk arranges a car and driver for me. I have another cup of coffee while I wait for it to arrive. Sit on a terrace overlooking the lake. Watch the birds and the clouds and wonder how I got here.

“OH! WE THOUGHT YOU checked out!”

I’m back at the Dali Perfect Inn, and it’s still fucking quaint. The same girl stands behind the counter as when I checked in a couple days ago: slim, young, wearing a Bai Minority costume. She looks kind of nervous. I wonder if the PSB paid her a visit.

Then I realize that John did.

“Yeah,” I say. “Change of plans. And I wish I could stay a little longer, because this is a very nice hotel.”

“Thank you,” she says, nodding rapidly.

“But I’m still trying to find the person who made the video. ‘Dali Scene.’ You said you could ask your manager?”

She bobs her head again. “Yes, certainly. Please, wait a moment. I will ask her.”

I sit in one of the Ming-dynasty chairs, stare at the world clock telling me that it’s 8:49 A.M. in Moscow.

At 9:02 A.M., Moscow time, another woman appears: middle-aged, in a sweater and slacks.

“Yes, I remember the foreigner who made the video. Very nice young man.”

“Great! Do you have a cell-phone number for him? Because I want him to make a video for me.”

She nods. “I found the number for you.” Hands me a slip of paper with a number written on it.

“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks very much.”

She hesitates. Smiles. “Will you be staying with us now? We have very nice room available.”

“I’m not sure,” I tell her. “I might be leaving town. But thanks for that.”

I STAND OUTSIDE THE Dali Perfect Inn and dial the number. And get the China Mobile recording: “Ni hao! Nin suo boda de shi konghao. Qing chazheng hou zaibo.”

The number you dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again.

I take a taxi to Xiaguan, to New Dali, to the long-distance bus station. It’s a cement building painted peeling white and blue with a couple of buses parked in a small lot, on a narrow street, on a block that looks like any other third-tier Chinese city: cluttered, grimy, cracked plastic signs. I check my duffel in to a locker there, and find another taxi to take me to Modern Scientific Seed Company.

TURNS OUT IT’S A storefront on another typical block, wedged between a paint store and a place that looks like it’s selling mostly doors.

I stand on the sidewalk across the street. Unlike the New Century Seed Company in Guiyu, this place has a sign, and the characters above the entrance, according to my trusty Pleco dictionary, actually do say MODERN SCIENTIFIC SEED COMPANY.

There’s a cartoon graphic of dancing ears of corn and tomatoes stenciled on the window.

The seed company in Jason’s latest video. I’m positive.

So he made it as far as here. Across the street at least. About where I’m standing right now.

You never know, and that’s the only thing that’s for sure. You never know what you’re going to step in. What’s going to be safe and what isn’t.

I take a deep breath, and I walk across the street.

AN ELECTRONIC DOORBELL SOUNDS as I push open the door, so loud that I jump.

Not cool, McEnroe.

Inside, it’s almost like a small showroom. Shoe-box-shaped. Cement floors. Plastic photos lit from behind on the walls of green fields, a factory complex, and various crops, with slogans like “Creating Green and Harmonious!” and “Harvest Happiness!” There’s a counter at the back with a computer sitting on it, a lone woman wearing a white smock, like she’s working in a hospital or a pharmacy. Older than me. Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She’s staring at me.

I smile. Nod. Walk along the wall, looking at the pictures of various seeds and crops. Cartoon ear of corn carried by happy baby. “Lihai 231 Hybrid,” it’s called. The dancing tomatoes. “Jingli 88.” Something green with stalks that’s rice or wheat or hay, like I can tell, called “Zhongcheng 351.”

By now my circuit has brought me to the back counter. The woman who sits there smiles tightly. “Wo keyi bang ni mang ma?” Can I help you?

“Ni hao.” I hesitate. I’m not sure what to ask. Do I pull out my photo of Jason/David/Langhai?

Maybe I should, you know, have an actual plan the next time I do something like this.

“I hear you sell a special kind of rice,” I finally say.

She keeps smiling. “We sell several special varieties of rice. For different circumstances.”

“This one is called New Century Hero Rice. Do you know it?”

She frowns. A cartoon kind of frown, almost. Put it up on the wall next to the dancing tomatoes.

“Burenshi.” Don’t recognize it. “I can search our products.”

She starts tapping on the keyboard. I glance around and see a surveillance camera, one of those black domes encased in white plastic, tucked in the corner of the ceiling.

Okay, I tell myself. Okay. These cameras are everywhere. It doesn’t mean anything.

The woman shakes her head. “We don’t have that brand,” she says. “Sorry. But I can ask my manager to recommend the proper kind.” The smile is back. “Depending on your circumstances.”

I start backing toward the door before I even think about it. “Thank you,” I say. “Wo kaolü hou zai jueding.” I’ll consider before I decide. “Zai jian!”

Another step. I turn around. Just get to the door, I tell myself, the muscles between my shoulders clenching.

Get to the door. Open it. Walk outside.

By the time I reach the sidewalk, I’m sweating like crazy. My heart’s pounding. Nerves in my bad leg lighting up like they’re on fire. I gulp in a breath. Then another.

Okay, I tell myself. No one’s coming to get me. It’s okay.

I’m a fucking head case. What makes me think I can do this kind of shit anyway?

Bus station.

Even though I’m a head case, even though there are no guys with iron bars chasing me, all I want to do right now is get to the bus station and get out of town.

FIVE HOURS FROM DALI to Kunming and I’m stuck on a bus playing a Hong Kong comedy at a volume that rattles the cheap speakers. I tilt the seat as far back as it goes, prop my feet up on the footrest. Close my eyes and try to figure out why I freaked out in the Modern Scientific Seed Company showroom.

Well, there’s the fact that, as mentioned, I’m a head case. Plus, the attempted mugging, getting beat up, followed, framed, Jason’s video, and having amazing sex with Creepy John.

I mean, it’s all pretty unsettling.

But that whole setup. An empty display room. The woman on her computer. The way she looked at me. The surveillance camera.

What was it? There weren’t any actual seeds there, at least that I saw. It didn’t look like the kind of place that farmers would go in to buy their future crops. Though what do I know about how Chinese farmers do business? Next to nothing. Maybe they go in there and look at all the pretty photos and place their orders over the Internet or something.

A corporate branch office, maybe.

Why was it on Jason’s list?

He had to have gotten those names from Han Rong, right? Han Rong, who claims to be a dissatisfied employee, but who doesn’t have any evidence of his own to bust Eos.

The whole thing stinks. Like a rotten fish tomato.

I GET INTO KUNMING around 9:00 P.M. I’m sore, I’m tired and I’m hungry. I check in to a hotel near Wenlin Jie, the cool area near the university where I hung out before. Limp down the street and find a restaurant specializing in Yunnan food. There’s all kinds of people out and about: students and tourists and locals, wandering down the narrow street that smells faintly of spices and sewage, gathering in clusters around the open-air bars, eating ice cream, drinking beer.

I sit and eat. Spicy beef with crispy basil and something called “Grandmother’s potatoes,” which is sort of like fried mashed potatoes but better. Wash it down with a Dali beer.

After I settle up, I’m feeling pretty good, so I wander down the street until I find a bar that looks decent. Well, actually, it looks kind of tacky, with silver walls and Plexiglas tables and red and blue floodlights, but it’s not crowded, which is what makes it look decent to me right now.

I take a seat at the bar, facing the street. Order an overpriced tequila shot and another Dali beer.

There’s one more name on Jason’s list. Bright Future Seed Company, in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province.

I’ve never been to Guizhou. I don’t know very much about it, only that it’s poor and supposedly beautiful and that it’s located between Yunnan, where I am now, and Guangxi, where Guilin and Yangshuo are.

Just east of here.

I don’t know, I tell myself. I don’t know. Does it make sense for me to go there? I mean, what are the odds that I go to Bright Future Seed Company and all my questions are answered?

That I find Jason.

Because that’s why I’m doing all this, right?

I’m thinking this, and I’m tired, and I guess I’m a little buzzed. Because when my phone rings, I flinch, and I grab it, and I hit ANSWER, even though it’s an unknown number.

I don’t stop to think about what that might mean.