Hour of the Rat

CHAPTER FIVE

“THIS COULD GET COMPLICATED.”

I sit across from Harrison Wang, distracted by his sweater. It’s this dense charcoal grey, has to be cashmere, and I just want to stroke it.

The sweater, like Harrison, is way out of my price range.

“You think?” I say.

Harrison is a good-looking man. The way that something perfectly constructed out of the best-quality materials is good-looking. You know, like a Ferrari. I’ve never seen him with a woman-or a man, for that matter-but I’m pretty sure anyone on his arm would be the same kind of expensive: a supermodel built like a gazelle or some genius artist with tragic cheekbones.

We’re meeting for dinner at a French-Vietnamese “bistro” in a restored courtyard building not too far from where I live-Harrison’s call (“The bo nhung dam is particularly good”). Though I’m more comfortable eating jiaozi in some dive dumpling house, I have to admit I’m liking this gourmet lifestyle way more than I should, considering that I don’t understand it and I can’t really afford it. This place is classy, with worn grey stone floors, antique furniture, and hand-woven tapestries on the walls, smoked paper lamps with yellow light hung on the thick ceiling beams.

And Harrison’s right, the bo nhung dam is delicious.

As long as he’s paying, I guess.

“I’m assuming Zhang Jianli isn’t in China,” Harrison says. He gives me a look, like he thinks I might know, and he’s searching for a hint on my face.

Here’s the situation: My friend Lao Zhang, got involved with someone he shouldn’t have and disappeared about a year ago. I got chased all over China because of it, and some bad shit happened. The outcome of all said shit being I ended as the manager of Lao Zhang’s art. I know he’s okay; we have a means of communicating. But I don’t know where he is. I don’t want to know. It’s better if I don’t. That way I can’t confess or let something slip to people like Pompadour Bureaucrat and Creepy John.

“How come you think that?” I ask.

“Well, if he’s in the country, he’s very well hidden.” Harrison lifts his hand to call the waitress. “I think the Château de Beaucastel,” he tells her.

I shrug. “China’s a big country.”

He turns to me. His hazel eyes catch the lantern light. “Do you know what the largest expenditure in China’s budget for the next five years is?”

“Apartments and Buicks for officials’ mistresses?”

Harrison doesn’t crack a smile. “Internal security. Ninety-five billion dollars this year alone, more than the budget for the People’s Liberation Army. And that’s only what was announced. All in the name of ‘stability protection.’ ”

“Huh,” I say, wishing the wine would get here. My glass is empty, and this discussion is making me nervous.

“If he were a murderer, even a serial killer, he’d be a provincial problem,” Harrison says. “Easy enough to disappear in another province, if one is careful. The local authorities don’t generally communicate with one another. But if the DSD decides to make Lao Zhang a priority and he’s still in China, odds are very good that they’ll find him.”

I fidget with my glass. “Well, they haven’t found him yet.”

The wine arrives. The waitress opens it, gives Harrison a taste. He does the swirl, sip, and nod. She pours. Thank God.

“Perhaps they won’t.”

Harrison lifts his glass. I raise mine as well. We clink. We don’t have to say the toast out loud.

I sip the wine, feel the subtle flavors spread on my tongue and fill my mouth and slide down my throat.

Sometimes I wish Harrison hadn’t introduced me to good wine.

“The problem is, they don’t necessarily have to label Lao Zhang a subversive,” Harrison says. “They can decide to go after him from an economic angle instead.”

“It’s not like Lao Zhang cares about money,” I say, but I’m already getting a bad feeling about this.

“Yes, but they can charge him with an economic crime. It’s very easy to do, given the ambiguity of tax laws for artists.”

“But I’m the one in control of his work,” I say.

Harrison nods. “Which doesn’t necessarily protect Lao Zhang. They are not much constrained by what’s on paper when they want something.”

Which means that even Harrison could have a problem. The way he structured the nonprofit I’m officially in charge of, he’s pretty insulated from the business of selling Lao Zhang’s art. But it still sits somewhere under the umbrella of his business dealings: the venture-capital fund, the real-estate investment company, the stuff he does that I don’t really understand.

One thing I do understand: The person square in the crosshairs would be me.

I gulp my wine. Which even trailer trash such as myself can tell is a sin.

“But we’ve done everything legally, right?” I ask.

Now Harrison does smile.

I get it-that doesn’t matter.

“I think for the time being it would be best if you don’t try to sell any more of Jianli’s work,” he says. “Let’s not compound the potential problem.”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I’m thinking, So much for the woman who emailed me about the guy claiming to be a billionaire art collector. That could have been some nice commission money if she isn’t full of shit.

I’m running the numbers in my head. I have some money stashed, enough to pay for the apartment for the next month and a half, to keep myself in Yanjing beer and dumplings. I have my craptastic disability pension. I can manage without making any commission, for a while anyway.

“What do you think I should do?” I ask.

“Just try to relax. Go about your routine.”

My routine… that would be what? Eating shrimp chips and drinking beer?

“I was thinking about getting out of town,” I say.

Harrison frowns. “I wouldn’t try to leave the country. In context it would look like an admission of guilt. They may let you go, but they might not let you back in.”

For some reason this irritates me. “Oh, like if I’m getting picked up by the DSD on a regular basis, I’m gonna want to stay here?”

“It’s up to you, of course,” he says mildly.

What he doesn’t say is that I knew the risks when I agreed to take this gig on. But I’m pretty sure he’s thinking it.

“I wasn’t planning on leaving the country,” I say, and I sound like a whiny teenager even to myself. “Just, you know, taking a vacation. In China. There’s places to take vacations here, right? Like, with air that isn’t trying to kill me?”

“Certainly.” Harrison gets a little misty-eyed. “I’m partial to Guizhou. Off the beaten path and really spectacular.”

“I was thinking of Yangshuo.”

“Oh. Well, tourism there is relatively developed. Which has its pluses and minuses. But yes, it’s quite beautiful.”

He pours us both more wine. “I don’t think taking a trip within China would be a problem. The DSD can always find you, if they want to.”

I DECIDE TO WALK home along Fangjia Hutong, one of the surviving alley streets that run east-west from Yonghegong to Andingmen. The scenic route. There are a couple of little bars here, and the Hot Cat Club, kind of a dive, but I like it. I like seeing the old, grey, stone buildings with some funky life in them. It’s cold, but I’ve had enough wine so that I’m not really feeling it, plus my leg’s aching, and sometimes walking helps.

I cross Andingmen, a big street, dodge a bus and taxis and private cars, walk a ways until I come to Beiluoguxiang Hutong, make a right onto it, going south. Another old street, grey stone buildings trimmed in rotting wood and random electrical wires. I pass a ramshackle bar with chili-pepper Christmas lights draped around the door, jazz music drifting out from within. A sign in the window says YOUTUBE, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, ENJOY WHAT YOU WANT!

All those sites are banned here, hard-blocked by the Great Firewall. That’s China for you.

When the revolution comes, it will be fought over kitten videos.

I head down Gulou Dongdajie, East Drum Tower Avenue, a main street that’s mostly rebuilt traditional Beijing grey stone buildings, two stories tops, with scalloped arched roofs, past the Mao Live House (a rock club), a string of guitar and music shops, coffeehouses, “Western” restaurants and chuanr stands-full as I am, the spicy mutton skewers roasting over charcoal still smell good.

Then I pass the military complex that always creeps me out: huge granite structures, a giant crane hovering over new construction, with trucks trundling smashed bricks from old hutong buildings out the gate where a uniformed soldier stands guard. Sometimes I think it’s just going to keep growing, taking over the old neighborhood like some malignant tumor.

When I told Creepy John that I was thinking about a vacation, I didn’t really mean it. I just wanted to say something, to throw his bullshit “dinner invitation” back in his face.

But I really do want to get out of Beijing. Even if the DSD can find me wherever I go, at least I won’t just be sitting around waiting for another knock on my door.

I don’t have to even look for Dog’s brother, I tell myself. I could take an actual vacation. Go see some cool scenery or whatever.

I take my favorite shortcut, through the Drum and Bell Tower square. It’s a plaza ringed by traditional siheyuanr, Beijing courtyard buildings, anchored by the Drum Tower on the south end and the Bell Tower on the north. You come here in the day and there are tour buses crammed into the pavement between the two Ming- or Qing-dynasty landmarks (I forget which) and guys on bicycle rickshaws trying to get you to take a hutong tour.

This time of night, it’s dark. Quiet, except for faint music from one of the bars or the occasional locals taking their little dog out for a late walk. I have it all to myself, the red-washed Drum Tower greyed by night to nearly match the grey stone Bell Tower across the way.

I love this place. In spite of everything.

I walk through the plaza and head down the alley that leads to Jiugulou Dajie, Old Drum Tower Street, threading my way through bicycle rickshaws parked there for the night.

Maybe I will go to Yangshuo. Ask around at some of the backpacker hangs about Jason so I can tell Dog I gave it a shot, like a good buddy should do. Then spend the rest of my time floating down a river on a bamboo raft, drinking beer, which I gather is what you do in Yangshuo.

There’s no reason it has to get complicated.