Hour of the Rat

by Lisa Brackmann

  The disappointment shows on both his and Mei Yee’s faces, though they quickly cover it up with smiles.

  I had a feeling, you know? That they didn’t just rescue me and take me to the doctor and stuff me full of food and have their kid fix my computer because they’re nice people, though they seem nice enough. They’re looking for justice, for someone to pay attention to their problems, for things to be put right. I don’t know how much news coverage even does for situations like this, but sometimes, if the central government’s sufficiently embarrassed, sometimes the problem gets addressed.

  And then moved somewhere else, out of sight.

  “Why you come here, then?” Mei Yee asks flatly.

  “Looking for the brother of a friend,” I say. I tell them the story and pull out my photo of Jason.

  They haven’t seen him.

  “Environmentalists come all the time to Guiyu,” Mei Yee says. “Not so much out here.”

  “I understand,” I say. We sit in silence. Wa Keung drinks more baijiu. I have another glass of beer.

  Then it occurs to me: These guys are farmers. They grow things. Like, from seeds.

  “Ni zhidao Xin Shiji Zhongzi Gongsi?” I ask. Have you heard of New Century Seeds?

  Wa Keung frowns. “Sure,” he says. “Sure, we just plant some.”

  I TELL WA KEUNG I can walk, and I follow him outside with the aid of my crutch—between the Percocet and the beer, I’m feeling pretty good.

  We go out behind the house, and Wa Keung points to a paddy cut into the hill that I can just make out, water glinting under the moonlight.

  “Rice,” he says. “First time I try this kind. Sprouting now. Seems good enough.”

  “So it’s just normal rice?” I ask.

  “No, they say it’s special kind. They tell us in conditions like this it grows better than normal rice.”

  “Conditions like what?”

  He turns his palms skyward and spreads his arms. “Like all of this. The pollution. The bad air and dirty water and poisoned earth. They say the rice will still grow, no matter what.”

  Prickles rise on the back of my neck. I’m not even sure why. I mean, rice that can grow in bad soil, that’s a good thing, right?

  “No matter what? How can it do that?”

  “Not sure. They say it’s ‘scientific process of development.’ ” Wa Keung shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’d rather grow same rice we grow here for generations. But last year’s crop hardly worth growing. Old rice can’t live here anymore.”

  There’s something buzzing in my head, about Jason, about him being into the environment, about a seed company in the middle of a toxic-waste dump.

  Jason may be off his meds, but something’s not right here.

  “Do you think this new rice is safe?” I ask. “My meaning is … if it can grow in these conditions …”

  Do you really want to be eating something that can grow in poisoned ground?

  He shrugs. “Who can say? Nothing is safe here. But we still have to make money. We have to eat. What choice do we have?”

  Wa Keung drives me in the tuolaji to a bus stop in the town where I saw the doctor, where I can catch a bus back to Shantou. He and Mei Yee made the polite offer that I should stay at their place for the night; I just as politely turned it down. I’m not the person they hoped I was, and they’ve already done enough for me. Besides, I want to get back to Shantou, to my hotel, to my own room and my own bed, temporary as it all is.

  Before I go, Wa Keung tells me a little more about the New Century “Hero Rice” seeds.

  “They say you can’t save seeds and grow from them the next year,” he tells me. “That you need to buy the seeds each time.”

  “That sounds a little complicated,” I say.

  “Maybe it’s not true. Maybe that’s just what they want you to think, so they can make more money.” He grins, and for the first time I can see that he’s Moudzu’s father.

  “Rice is rice,” he tells me. “If it isn’t processed, you can grow it. Of course we’ll try to use what we grow. Why should we pay them over and over again?”

  We go into a little shed tacked onto the main house, stuffed with random junk—a broken chair, a stack of empty plastic buckets, a battered suitcase—and he aims a flashlight to show me the bag the rice came in, which they’d been using to store some of Moudzu’s computer parts. It’s a couple feet high, white woven plastic with a red, gold, and black stencil on it of your basic Chinese proletariat hero thrusting a hoe into the air, rice growing triumphantly in the background. NEW CENTURY HERO RICE! it says, in Chinese and English.

  Is this some kind of joke?

  Wa Keung dumps the components out onto the floor—a bunch of old keyboards, mostly.

  “Here,” he says, folding the bag up and holding it out to me. “You can have it if you want.”

  I stuff it into my daypack.

  “Do you know any reporter?” he asks, “who maybe is interested in our story?”

  “Maybe,” I say. I’ve met a couple anyway. “When I return to Beijing, I can ask.”

  He smiles and nods, but I can’t tell if he believes me. I don’t know if I believe myself.

  The other thing I do before we leave is pay Moudzu some money for the parts and trouble he took to fix my laptop. Because, what do you know, it boots up fine now.

  “You should get new one,” he informs me solemnly. “This one very outdated. Most people don’t bother to fix.”

  “True,” I say. “True.”

  I TAKE THE BUS back to Shantou and a taxi to my hotel, the Brilliant Star Inn. I’m managing with one crutch and trying to juggle the other as I enter the minimal lobby: a small room with a red-cushioned couch framed in fake chrome; a glass-door cooler filled with water, sodas, beer, and energy drinks; shelves with sundries for sale that are mostly packaged underwear and Pringles chips and, with a nod to Shantou’s international reputation, radio-controlled crawling soldier toys and Barbie rip-offs called Spank Me Girl!

  Behind a reception counter covered with walnut-grained plastic veneer is a friendly hotel worker representing the colors of the Brilliant Star posse—a bright yellow jacket with purple stitching that claims her name is LATOYA.

  “Oh, are you hurt?” she asks. “Do you need help?”

  I manage a smile. “I’m fine. Thank you.” I gesture toward the cooler. “But I’ll take two bottles of beer.”

  She insists on carrying the beer and my spare crutch up to my room, which is on the third floor. “Did you have an accident?” she asks. “Do you need a doctor?”

  “A small accident. I already saw a doctor. Thank you.”

  Truth is, once I hang the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, lock it, and gingerly position myself on the bed, which is your basic cheap Chinese-hotel “Is this a mattress or a sheet of plywood covered by a polyester pad and a sheet?” kind of deal, I realize that I feel pretty crappy. I mean, I’m used to my leg hurting. It hurts a lot of the time. But this is on a different level, the kind of pain I felt years ago, when the injury was fresh. And my chest hurts, too, and my throat, and the insides of my nostrils, like everything’s been rubbed with sandpaper and bleach. And I wonder, how the fuck do people live in that place? People like Wa Keung and Mei Yee and Moudzu? How do they get up every day and do what they have to do? How does a kid like Moudzu believe he’s going to become the next Steve fucking Jobs?

  I crack open a beer and I drink, thinking sometimes it’s better not to know how the world really works. The less you know, the more you can pretend that you have a shot of beating the odds.

  I lift up my bottle of Kingway beer. “Go Peach Computers!”

  That makes me laugh. I laugh and laugh, and then I pound a few more slugs of beer. I’d open the other bottle, but it’s all the way over on the desk by the TV, and I don’t think I can go that far.

  At some point I manage to put the empty bottle down on the pressboard nightstand and turn off the light.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN


  I SLEEP PRETTY CRAPPY most of the night, the pain in my leg waking me up when I stay too long in one position, until finally I take another Percocet at around 5:00 A.M., and that knocks me out for a while.

  Until my phone goes off. The default ringtone I use for unknown callers is, System of a Down’s “Hypnotize.”

  I fumble around for my phone. I feel like someone’s dropped a skip loader of cement on me. “Wei?” I manage.

  “Ellie McEnroe?” A woman, clipped, forceful.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Vicky Huang, representing Sidney Cao. Have you returned to Beijing?”

  “I, uh …” Something about the sharp edge of her voice penetrates the haze in my skull, and then I remember. It’s the woman fronting for the supposed billionaire who wants to buy some of Lao Zhang’s work.

  “No,” I say, “not yet.”

  “Do you have a date for returning?”

  “It’s complicated. Look, Ms. Huang—”

  “Mr. Cao is very patient man. If we can only schedule this talk, that will satisfy him for present time.”

  I stare at my phone. It’s possible I’m misinterpreting due to a Percocet hangover, no coffee, and Vicky Huang’s English as a Second Language lack of nuance, but I feel like she’s about to order someone to come and break my kneecaps if I don’t cooperate.

  Which is ridiculous, right? We’re talking about art here.

  “Vicky. Look. I keep trying to tell you, I can’t sell you any of Zhang Jianli’s art right now. I mean, nothing you say to me is going to make a difference.”

  “Why?” she demands. “Why can’t you sell to us?”

  “I can’t sell to anybody.” My heart’s pounding from a rush of anger. Get a grip, I tell myself. You can’t tell her the truth—make something up. “We’re reorganizing. The … the business structure. We can’t sell anything till that’s done, and we get a … a new business license.”

  “What is your time frame for this? Mr. Cao is a powerful man. He can aid you in securing any necessary permits.”

  Sweet cartwheeling Jesus, this woman is like the fucking Terminator.

  I open my mouth to tell her to kindly fuck off, and then I stop. So much stuff happens in China because of guanxi—personal connections. If this guy really is a big-deal billionaire, maybe he has some pull. I mean, I doubt he can call up the DSD and tell them to lay off, but who knows? It might not be a bad idea to hear what he has to say. Or to at least not piss him off.

  “I very much would like to talk to Mr. Cao,” I say. “But I had a small accident, so I have to rest for a few more days.”

  When in doubt, play the xiuxi card. Rest! It’s like the catch-all excuse in China—no matter what kind of deep shit you’re in, just say you need a rest and, weirdly, people will often leave you alone.

  “I am sorry to hear,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry. “Where will you be resting? Perhaps we can arrange a meeting.”

  “Yangshuo,” I say without thinking. I mean, I have to say something, and it’s not like I can explain a vacation in Shantou, or in scenic Guiyu.

  “Ah, yes. Very beautiful.” The slightest of pauses, and I think I hear the clicking of fingers on a keyboard. “Perhaps in two days?”

  “I’m not sure about that. Let me call you when I … when I’ve had a chance to rest.”

  The clicking stops. “Three days is also a possibility.”

  “Okay. Right. I’ll call you. Really.”

  Oh, man.

  SO HERE’S MY DILEMMA: What do I do now?

  I’ve told Vicky that I’m in Yangshuo, which of course I’m not. So should I go back there? Or should I stay far away? Maybe get my ass back to Beijing. Because I don’t know who Vicky Huang and Sidney Cao really are. They could be … I don’t know, DSD informers. Or crazy art stalkers. I mean, who knows?

  I slowly haul my gimpy ass out of bed, and man, do I feel like shit. My leg is killing me, and my hip hurts on the other side, and my back, too, probably because I’ve been walking funny. I heat up some water in the little electric kettle, rip open a Starbucks VIA. I suck that down, and then I make another one.

  Okay, I think, okay. I am sort of awake. My head doesn’t hurt too much. I can handle this. Or at least think it through.

  I boot up my battered laptop, log on to the hotel’s free Internet, and start searching for Sidney Cao.

  It takes me a while, and I find a lot of irrelevant crap, but there’s a Sidney Cao based in Anhui who started a company called Happy Village Ltd that does something involving chemical products. And yeah, he’s loaded. In addition to his business, he’s built shopping malls, housing developments, and he’s cited in a Web magazine devoted to “the business of luxury and culture in China” as having recently begun to collect Chinese art, both ancient and modern, in a big way. Art and Bordeaux wines.

  That’s got to be my guy.

  I check Vicky Huang’s emails, and sure enough the domain is happyvillageltd.cn.

  Okay, he’s for real, then. So what makes the most sense?

  I mull it over.

  I don’t think I have to worry about him if I decide to go to Yangshuo. He seems legitimate. But I could also just go back to Beijing and arrange a meeting from there. It’s not like I’m obligated to go to Yangshuo.

  But that’s where a part of me still wants to go. Because I haven’t completed the mission yet: Operation Find Jason. I know a little more than I did, or at least I think that I do. I know that Jason was interested in New Century Seeds and that there’s something pretty shady about them.

  The rice will still grow, no matter what.

  Maybe I can use that information to find out more from his friends in Yangshuo.

  Even as I think this, there’s another part of me that’s going, You fucking idiot. You’re not going to find out anything, and what’s the point anyway? Whatever the problem is, you’re not going to be able to fix it.

  But there’s the idea that I can give Dog an answer. That I can give myself an answer. You know, figure things out. Solve the mystery. The End.

  Yeah, right.

  I ’M NOT CRAZY ABOUT it, but I decide to fly to Guilin. It costs more, but my leg hurts a lot, and I’m not feeling all that great in general, and I just want to get there. So I buy a ticket, rise up at stupid o’clock the next day to catch the one plane from Shantou to Guilin, and I get into Guilin around nine-thirty in the A.M. I stagger around the airport with my daypack and my duffel and my crutches and find the bus that goes into Guilin proper. Take that to the train station and find the bus to Yangshuo. I do all this in a fog of hurt and narcotics and lack of sleep. None of it feels real, except for the shooting pain every time I step on my bad foot.

  “This sucks,” I mutter as I rest my head against the window of the Yangshuo bus. I stretch my leg out as much as I can. At least no one claims the seat next to me, and I doze a bit as the bus bumps along down the road to Yangshuo. I don’t even open my eyes when the driver lays on the horn and swerves around whatever car or taxi or tuolaji might be in his path.

  I GET INTO YANGSHUO about noon. I check into my hotel, which is tucked in an alley off Xi Jie. It’s a backpacker dive called Maggie’s Guesthouse. The lobby is a jumble of mismatched furniture, old travel and music posters, kids sprawled out working on their laptops. I picked it because it’s close to the Gecko, and I don’t want to walk far in the shape I’m in.

  Yeah, I plan on going back there. Yeah, it’s probably a stupid idea. But that guy Erik knows something, I’m sure he does. And so does Sparrow, who might even be a better target. She was nicer anyway.

  But I’m too tired to go there right now. I ache all over, and my leg feels swollen against the compression bandage. I should take a look at it, I guess, but I don’t want to. Instead I have a Percocet and stretch out on the hard bed. I swallow a couple of aspirin, too, for the inflammation. I stare at the ceiling, at the water stains and peeling paint and think, Seriously, what the fuck are you doing?

  Attacked t
wice, in two different cities. All of Jason’s friends, if they really are his friends, acting like they’re in some mafia and took a vow of silence, treating me like I’m some kind of cop or something.

  What is there about this situation that I’m missing? Aside from Jason?

  Then I think: Jason.

  I’ve researched the seed companies. I’ve researched Sidney Cao and Vicky Huang. The person I haven’t checked out is Jason.

  I start Googling. And it doesn’t take me long to find out just how FUBAR the situation really is.

  IT’S ABOUT 10:00 P.M. in San Diego. If that’s past anybody’s bedtime, too fucking bad. Because if I have to make an actual phone call, I will.

  Somebody’s up, though—Dog’s Skype icon is green.

  Sure enough, when I ring, he picks up right away. Like he’s been sitting by the computer waiting.

  His face lights up when he sees me.

  “Hey, Baby Doc! You got … you got news?”

  “I’m working on it. Listen, is Natalie around?”

  That gets him worried. His forehead wrinkles, his eyes squeeze shut for a second, his lips draw back before he can get the words out. “You can … tell me.”

  “Look, as far as I know, Jason’s fine. This is something I gotta talk to Natalie about.”

  He frowns. Then bellows, “Hey, Nat!”

  I wait for Natalie to sit in the computer chair, adjust the earbuds. She smiles at me, showing her slightly crooked teeth. She looks exhausted, but maybe that’s from the blue glow of the computer screen.

  “Hi, Ellie,” she starts. “Doug said—”

  I cut her off. “So you left out a few things.”

  Her eyes dart to one side, then back to me. “It’s complicated,” she says.

  “Really? Complicated? Like, the part where Jason’s an ecoterrorist?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  YEAH. AN ECOTERRORIST.

  That’s what the spokesman of the company whose property he vandalized called him. I’d write that off to corporate asshattery, except it looks like the FBI is saying the same thing.

  Here’s what I found out:

  Jason was in some group of environmental activists who went from posting their manifestos online and protesting in front of companies who’d committed ecological sins to more serious shit: “monkey-wrenching” they called it at first. Minor acts of sabotage, like chaining themselves to trees and slapping bumper stickers on SUVs that said things like YOU ARE DRIVING A DEATH MACHINE!