Year of the Tiger (36 page)

He hands me these, these sunglasses. Like ones you’d wear for skiing, almost like goggles. Dark.

I try to put them on, but I miss my head and stab myself in the eye with an earpiece.

Shit. I am so wasted.

‘Oh, man, this is ridiculous,’ I say.

‘Here,’ Charlie says, exasperated. He puts the glasses on me. I see them coming, like they’re this special effect in a movie. The bad spaceship. Big black glasses, blotting out everything.

Then I can’t see.

‘Don’t take them off,’ he says. ‘Don’t even try. Or I’ll cuff you. Understand?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. Then I laugh. Sure, I understand. Right.

‘Shit,’ he mutters. ‘Okay, we’re standing up now.’

He helps me up. Guides me to the door. I can’t see a fucking thing.

I don’t know where I’m going. I have no idea. I’m stumbling around in the dark with this guy holding me up. I think we turn and turn again, but that might just be me. There’s an elevator, I’m pretty sure. Going down. At one point, I collapse. The glasses come loose. I see, glimpse, concrete stained with oil. A car tire. An open car door.

A hand pushes the glasses back on.

‘In you go,’ says Charlie. He guides me into the car. The door slams. The car lurches back, then forward.

We drive and drive. Everything’s spinning.

Somebody sits in the back seat with me, making sure I don’t peek.

I think it’s Suit #1. It must be. Because after we’ve driven for hours, forever, he puts his hand on my shoulder and says to me: ‘This is what I want you to understand. We will be watching you. We’ll be listening to you. Always, from here on out. There’s no place you can go where we can’t find you. So don’t try to run. There’s no such thing as running. Are we both clear on that?’

I’m staring into the inky black. I can see patterns in it if I really try.

‘Uh-huh,’ I say.

The car slows. Stops. ‘Here’s where you get off.’

The door opens. Somebody helps me out. My butt hits cold concrete. I hear a muffled thud as something lands next to me.

‘Don’t turn around,’ Suit #1 says.

Hands take off the glasses.

I blink in the night.

Behind me, with a soft squeal of tires and a low hum of its engine, the car pulls away.

My head falls back. A streetlight, glowing around the edges. A tall building. Lift up your head, I tell myself. Hard to do when your head feels like a big lead balloon.

In front of me, gates. Cheerful signs. Little cartoon kids. Trees. Grass. A park. It’s dark. Night. A lone worker sweeps the gutter with a straw broom. I see big characters on the sign: ‘North … something … park.’

I’m still in China.

I pat around on the sidewalk next to me.

Here’s my day pack. My jacket. My shoes.

My mouth feels like about a hundred miles of bad road. My stomach – I think I’m going to be sick.

I throw up in the gutter.

A couple of guys walk past, stare for a moment, and continue on.

‘Okay,’ I mutter. ‘Okay.’ I fumble with my shoes. Get them on my feet. Try to tie them.

I stand up, and I can tell I’m really loaded.

For a minute, I think about approaching the street sweeper over by the park entrance. Asking ‘Hey, did you see who brought me here? How they dumped me out on the sidewalk?’

But what’s the point? Chinese people mostly mind their own business. There’s an expression for it –
ma mu
– meaning ‘wooden-headed.’

Numb.

Nobody’s going to have noticed anything, and so what if they did? What would it prove?

‘Ha, I’m gonna go to
The New York Times
,’ I mumble, stumbling down the street. ‘Gonna go to CNN. To Huffington Post! Tell ’em all about this shit. Ha-ha.’

Where the fuck am I?

I walk and walk and walk.

I get so tired. My leg hurts. My head hurts too.

Finally, I stop and hold on to a skinny tree trunk. Close my eyes. Still not as dark as the glasses, I think.

‘Miss? Miss?’

I open my eyes. A taxi. A Beijing taxi.

‘You want taxi?’ A cab driver, brown wrinkled face, tea-stained teeth. Straining to get the English words out through a thick Beijing accent.

I burst into tears.

‘Yeah,’ I say, snuffling into my sweatshirt. ‘Yeah.’

The cab driver, my new best friend, gives me a lecture as we drive down the 4th Ring Road.

‘You see, this is a problem with modern society. You meet strangers. You don’t know what kind of people they are. You shouldn’t be so trusting.’

‘True,’ I agree.

It would have been simpler if I’d kept my mouth shut, but I’m drunk. And maybe high on something else – who knows what else was in that vodka, and the Suits sure like their drugs. So I told the cab driver a story about how I was out at this club and I met these two guys and they put something in my drink. I didn’t say what happened after that, but the driver wants to take me to a hospital or, alternately, Public Security.

‘That’s okay.’

‘Maybe you’re right, Public Security is worthless. But I know some other people …’

He starts hinting about some cousins of his with Triad connections; at least, I think that’s what he’s getting at.

‘I just want to go home,’ I blurt out.

‘Okay, okay.
Nide jia zai nar
?’

Where is your home?

I laugh to myself.

We’re at the northern end of Chaoyang District. 798 Factory is near here. So is the Capital Airport. I get that urge again, the one that says: go to the airport. Catch the next plane out. Just like when I went to the train station and took the train to Taiyuan.

Maybe that’s not the best way for me to think any more.

Mati Village, I think. That’s where my stuff is. I could go there, even though it’s kind of far.

Then I realize, I don’t even know if I have any money.

I check inside my backpack. Flick on the little flashlight I keep attached to the ring inside. Well, that’s still there.

So is everything else. Here’s my iPhone. My wallet, with 2,000-plus yuan still inside. My passport, in the hidden pocket.

Here’s Beanie squid. With the Taoist fortune and Lao Zhang’s letter tied around its neck.

That’s just weird.

For a moment, I think: Treasure Chicken Village, John getting beat up, the little cement room – maybe none of that really happened. But I know it did. I guess I just somehow hope that really wishing it hadn’t might make it so.

My head pounds, and I think I might throw up again.

All I want to do is lie down.

If you find yourself in town, and you need somewhere to stay, feel free to use this place. Just ring the bell.

Harrison told me that.

‘Miss? Where do you want to go?’

I give him the address.

It’s just like Harrison said so long ago. It feels like years. How long ago was that? Two weeks?

It’s the middle of the night, and I don’t even know what day it is.

But I ring the bell, and the housekeeper answers.

Of course, Miss, Mr Harrison is happy to have you as his guest. You should treat this like your home.

Harrison isn’t there. Didn’t he tell me that he hardly ever was?

‘Please,’ I ask, ‘can you tell me when Mr Harrison is returning?’

‘Mmm, not sure. But maybe on Tuesday.’

I’m too embarrassed to ask how far that is from now.

So here I am, in Harrison’s empty luxury penthouse. His gallery. The air conditioning whispers; the air is vaguely scented with cedar.

I wander around in my bare feet. Dangle my toes in the channeled fountain. Stare at the art.

Looking at the work here, I think Lao Zhang’s paintings really are good. They’re about something. I’m not sure what, but I can tell, they’re real. Substantial. No wonder Harrison wants some for his collection.

I’m going to do the right thing, I vow. I’m going to make sure they’re protected. Appreciated.

Lao Zhang trusts me. I’m not going to fuck up.

I stagger into the bedroom I stayed in last time. No pajamas on the bed. I search the dresser drawers and find a stack of silk pajamas, still in their wrappers.

Funny, I think. I wonder who else stays here. How many women? Or how many men? I’m really not sure, in Harrison’s case.

I pick a pair I think will fit and change in the bathroom. Brush my teeth. Stare at my face in the mirror. Yeah, I look like shit. There’s a bruise spread across my cheek. How did that happen?

Oh, yeah. When I landed on the concrete floor.

The swollen lip … Right. I remember that too. When he hit me.

I fall into the large soft bed. Eventually the room stops spinning. And finally I sleep. Or pass out. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

The next morning, the coffee is already brewing when I wander into the kitchen. ‘For breakfast, what would you like?’ the housekeeper asks.

‘Anything is fine.’

I sit at the dining table. Here’s a laptop, with an open browser.

I click on to Yahoo. It’s Friday, April 23. 10:12
A.M.

I try to think. I lost … I lost … two days? Three?

I can’t remember.

The housekeeper brings me coffee, a bowl of tofu with pickled vegetables, a croissant, and a bowl of fruit.

‘Thanks,’ I say vaguely. I surf the Net a while.

I think about checking my e-mail.

Why not? If the Suits can find me no matter where I go and no matter what I do, what difference does it make?

Something stops me. Something about not wanting to involve Harrison, even if I already have, just by being here.

Or something about how he might be one of them.

I really should leave.

But I don’t. Instead, I sit around in silk pajamas and watch TV. Nap. Eat the great meals and drink the tea and fine wine brought to me by the housekeeper, a woman from Fujian nicknamed Annie who treats me like I’m a convalescent. Which in a way I guess I am.

I don’t check my e-mail. I don’t try to log on to the Game.

Nobody bothers me. No one at all. If the Suits know where I am, they choose to leave me alone.

After three days of this, when the bruise on my face has faded to a light green, I figure it’s time to go.

I thank Annie for her kindness and tell her to give Harrison my thanks for his hospitality.

Then I go out into the world.

It’s blistering hot. First thing, I go to the nearest mall and buy myself a couple of T-shirts and some shorts. I used to hate wearing shorts because of the scars on my leg; but now I think: fuck it. It’s hot.

I ride the escalators up and down. Have a bite to eat at the food court in the basement. Stop in at Starbucks and order a latte. Listen to the Afro-pop they’re playing today.

Then I find a Net bar.

The clerk here asks for my passport. I hand it over. I don’t much care any more. She enters it into a computer. Damn, I think, that’s actually efficient. But then this is a classy-looking Net bar. No gaming posters on the wall. An espresso-and-tea station along with the usual cold drinks. Comfortable chairs.

I log in to my e-mail.

My inbox is loaded.

I answer Lucy Wu first: ‘Hi, Lucy, I’m back in town now. Let me know when you’d like to have lunch. I might have some ideas on that exhibit you’re interested in.’

Read an e-mail from one of my buddies, that dog Turner: ‘Hey, Baby Doc, hope this finds you doing okay. Guess where I am? Ha ha, that’s right, redeployed to the sandbox. Ain’t life a bitch? But I’m in KBR-land, near the Pizza Hut, so I guess I won’t complain too bad. Attached is a recent pic of me and the family. The new addition is baby Nicole, she’s seven months.

‘Take care of yourself, Doc.’

KBR-land is a section of Joint Base Balad. It’s like Little America, they tell me. Most of the guys never leave the base. Same thing with the other three bases they built, bases with air-conditioned Conexes wired with the Internet, football fields, Pizza Huts, and, yeah, Grande Mochachinos.

But still.

Another buddy in the kill zone, in the war without end.

I write him back. Give him some shit and tell him I’m fine and say what a good-looking family he has.

There are a bunch of e-mails from my mom.

‘Well, it looks like I’m taking the Sunrise job,’ she says in one of them. ‘Things will be a little tight but I feel that this is what God wants for me and with His help, everything will work out fine. Hope you’re okay sweetie. Write me, would you? It makes me nervous when I don’t hear from you for a while.’

I blink a few times and stare at the screen.

‘Hi Mom,’ I finally type. ‘Sorry I haven’t written sooner. I got kind of sick while I was traveling. Nothing serious but I slept a lot and couldn’t get to an Internet bar for a few days. I’m back in Beijing now. Everything’s fine.’

I hesitate. I just can’t decide what needs to be said right now.

Then I think of something.

‘Remember that e-mail you sent me? The one about the kid playing piano, with the famous musician telling him to keep playing? That was good advice. Thanks for that.’

I hit send.

There’s nothing from Trey.

What did they tell him, I wonder? The Suits. What did they say? ‘Hey, no need to worry about your wife any more, ’cause we’re taking care of that problem for you. Enjoy life with your girlfriend, buddy!’