Hour of the Rat

by Lisa Brackmann

  He’s quiet again, but he’s not staring at me. Instead he fixes on his tequila.

  “Okay,” he finally says. He still won’t look at me.

  “Thanks.” I’m so surprised he agreed that I don’t know what else to say. “You want another tequila?” I think to ask.

  He shakes his head. “Look, Doc, you’re not gonna fuck me over on this, are you? Because yeah, I know those guys. And they’re assholes.” Now he does look at me. I’d say he seems more annoyed than concerned, but whatever. “So say I talk to them. It’s gonna be hard to call those dogs off the scent. The best thing you can do? Give it up. Don’t give them a trail to follow.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Gotcha.”

  I DECIDE TO LOOK for soup dumplings. They’re supposed to be a Shanghai specialty, and I’ve hardly had any dumplings since I left Beijing.

  Just those ones with Creepy John. And the dog.

  Anyway, the famous place is over in some tourist area near a temple, but it’s not close and I’m tired. Plus, my new outfit may look cool, but it’s not quite warm enough for the forty-something-degree weather outside. I ask the hostess about dumplings when I pay the bill for my drinks and Carter’s tequilas, and she tells me there’s a good place not far from here. I find it, tucked on a little street just a few blocks away. Your basic cheap Chinese restaurant, white walls, plastic tables with plastic covers, a couple of fish tanks in the window. I order some dumplings, including the soup kind that come with a plastic straw so you can suck up the hot juice.

  I’m aching tired. Seeing Carter again, talking to him, it’s made me think about too much other shit I don’t like thinking about.

  What I try to think about, while I’m eating, while I’m limping back to my hotel, is what do I do now?

  Go back to Beijing, I guess. I mean, that’s the only thing to do, right? Hope that Carter can call off the dogs.

  Which makes me think about Dog Turner. I wonder if he’s out of the hospital.

  What the fuck is it with dogs anyway?

  I get back to my hotel just after 8:30 P.M., and all I want to do is crawl into bed.

  Except maybe I’ll check my email first.

  Nothing new from Natalie. Of course, it’s like, what—4:30 A.M. in San Diego right now?

  I think I’m going to hate writing that email. Or making that Skype call. The one where I say, I took it as far as I could, but I didn’t find Jason.

  Come on, I tell myself. How many people would’ve done as much as I did? I mean, I almost got killed.

  I also found a dog. And had that crazy night with John. But that’s not stuff I should be thinking about.

  I wonder if Langhai’s posted anything new?

  Don’t even look. What if he has? Are you really going to go there?

  I could just check.

  I go to Youku. Look up Langhai’s account. And there it is.

  “Kaili Dreaming.”

  Don’t even watch it, I tell myself. Just don’t.

  Of course I do.

  It’s another tourist video, kind of like “Dali Scene” but more impressionistic, I guess. Jagged mountains draped in mist. Villages made up of wooden houses with peaked roofs. Emerald terraced hills. Dudes in round bamboo peasant hats, plowing fields with water buffalo. Old ladies wearing silver collars and embroidery. People dancing. Old men holding out bowls of something … wine? And there’s these flags, ragged white banners with red stains tied to wooden poles stuck in grass-covered mounds, some fluttering in tree branches. All through it this weird music—pipes, I think, and high-pitched voices.

  The last couple shots are of this valley, a stream running through rice paddies, a roofed wooden bridge, a waterwheel.

  The End.

  No credits. No “thank you” to hotels or businesses.

  The video is so beautiful. I figure the place can’t really look like that. All that unspoiled nature and those pretty, hand-carved villages and people dressed up in their groovy ethnic outfits and all. No place I’ve been to in China really looks like that. Like some tourist’s fantasy.

  WHEN I WAKE UP the next morning, the same soundtrack I fell asleep to is still playing in my head.

  I shouldn’t go there. It’s a bad idea.

  Give it up. Don’t give them a trail to follow.

  Can I go there without leaving a trail?

  I do a little Googling. Find out that Kaili is the capital of a minority autonomous region in Guizhou Province. The capital of which is Guiyang, where I just was. Where I went to the warehouse.

  I lie in bed, and I’m aching all over. Really hurting.

  I add it up: What happened in Guiyang, that was just the day before yesterday.

  The bed at Sidney Cao’s French palace was a lot more comfortable than this one. Too bad about the whole “Sidney Cao is a batshit crazy obsessive stalker and murderer” part.

  Fuck.

  I sit up, scoot to the edge of the bed. My whole body feels like it’s cramped up. I can barely stand. Percocet. Coffee.

  I plug in the electric kettle, make myself a cup of Starbucks VIA, and collapse onto the desk chair. Hold the cup in both hands and sip.

  You can’t go, I tell myself. You can’t. You could lead them right to Jason. Plus, you could get your ass kicked even worse.

  What you do is, you turn over the information you have to Dog and Natalie. Let them know about Jason’s video channel. They can try emailing him. Maybe he’ll write back.

  It sucks, though. I got so close. Found out all kinds of shit. Followed every lead.

  Except this one.

  And I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to quit. Don’t want to let those Eos fuckers stop me.

  I want to complete the mission. Act like I’m not afraid, even if I am.

  But I can’t.

  I sip my bitter, grainy coffee.

  I could take an overnight train to Beijing, or I could fly, but given the way I’m feeling, which is beat to shit, used up, and tossed by the side of a road, I’m not much in the mood to travel.

  I try to decide, should I be worried about the Eos guys? About Buzz Cut? I mean, in the long run they’re a problem. Another entry on my list of powerful people that I’ve managed to piss off.

  In the short term?

  They don’t know I’m in Shanghai—that is, unless Carter fucked me over.

  I’m sure they know how to find me in Beijing.

  At least I have friends there. People who can help me. Like Harrison. And … well, Creepy John.

  I’m really not sure that I want to go there. Asking a guy who works for the DSD for protection?

  Talk about getting in bed with the wrong people.

  I’ll go home tomorrow, I tell myself. Try to get my shit together so I can front like everything’s normal to Mom and Andy. Set up a meeting with Harrison to discuss the whole Sidney Cao situation. Move forward. What else can I do?

  It’s too bad Lucy Wu isn’t in town, because it would be nice to hang out with her. Discuss art or something. Funny. I never would have thought that I’d end up working with her. Being friends, even.

  I look at my fancy outfit draped over one of the chairs and think maybe I can pull it off. Put on those clothes and be that person.

  Ellie McEnroe, Art Gal.

  Hah. What a joke.

  I mean, okay, I’ve learned some stuff. It’s, like, I know Lao Zhang’s art is good. I just don’t really know why.

  It’s powerful. It makes me feel something. But how it does that I still don’t really understand.

  I read art magazines, Web sites, all that, just so I can fake my way through conversations with people who know more than I do, who are experts. But a lot of what I read—all this intellectual stuff, the theories—I don’t know what they’re talking about.

  I haven’t read anything or even thought about it since I started chasing Jason.

  Harrison takes me places, tries to teach me stuff. I could try harder to learn on my own, I guess. To really know.

  C
omplete the mission, right?

  WHAT I DECIDE TO do is go look at art.

  I mix and match my pricey jacket with jeans and a faded T-shirt. I pack my sweater, just in case, although it’s warmer than yesterday. Have another cup of coffee and another Percocet. Nothing like a little caffeine and narcotics to start your morning right.

  I can do this.

  I go to Mogushan, your basic collection of art galleries in a bombed-out factory complex. The art’s okay, I guess, but nothing really strikes me. But I find a fun T-shirt place, with designs ripping off CCP icons—praying hands clasping a Little Red Book. Another proclaiming WE LOVE TIANANMEN SQUARE!

  I sit and have a beer at a little café when my leg starts hurting. It’s better, though. I mean, back to where it was before Guiyu, meaning pretty fucked up. But it’s a pain I can live with.

  After that I visit the Shanghai Museum. Classical Chinese art. Scrolls. Landscape painting. Pottery. Calligraphy. It’s beautiful. I spend a lot of time there in the hushed gold light, just looking.

  When I’m done, I find some soup dumplings at a little dive not too far from the museum, and then I go back to my hotel.

  This wasn’t a bad day, I think. I could keep doing stuff like this. Having days like today. It’s not a bad life, right?

  Maybe it’s even a good one.

  I open a beer I snagged at a mini-mart and flop down in the desk chair. I figure I’ll do a little Web surfing and email before I sleep.

  There’s an email from an address I don’t recognize: SparkleOn77@yahoo.com. I open it.

  Hi Ellie it’s Natalie. Writing you from hospital. Doug still here. Docs not sure what’s going on. He’s confused and agitated. Asking a lot about Jason. Just wondering if you have any news I can tell him. Thanks for everything. Sent from my iPhone.

  Fuck.

  I’m not ready to write this email. I’m really not.

  Hi Natalie. Re: your question, it’s a little complicated, but I’ve got some good leads for you. Probably better if we discuss on Skype.

  I hesitate.

  Really sorry to hear that Doug’s still in the hospital, I type. “Hope that the docs get what’s going on with him straightened out soon. Best, Ellie.”

  I SLEEP, BUT I don’t sleep well. Maybe I’m missing Sidney Cao’s bed. Maybe it’s the pain in my muscles. Plus the crazy dreams I’m having. For some reason there’s these frogs all over the place. Twitching and jumping. I’m trying to walk down a street that in my head is in Yangshuo, even though it looks more like the electronics village in Guiyu, and the frogs are everywhere, and I step on a couple, and they crunch under my foot.

  I wake up in a sweat.

  6:00 A.M.

  I lie in the bed for a while, but I can’t get back to sleep. I think about drinking another beer. I think about taking another Percocet.

  Finally I get up and make a cup of instant coffee and open up my laptop.

  Not too many emails. The usual spam. A nice note from Palaver and Madrid, buddies of mine who hooked up during our deployment and got married, like in Vermont or someplace seeing as how they’re lesbians, had a kid. Stayed together.

  Nice to see things working out for someone.

  I think about my mom and Andy.

  No way. No way that will last.

  I’m thinking about that, and I look at the next email. The subject line is “Hi,” and it’s from Jason88.

  No one I know.

  I get this little shiver between my shoulder blades. Open the email.

  I heard you’re looking for me, it says.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  FOR A MINUTE ALL I can do is sit there and stare at the screen.

  I heard you’re looking for me. That’s all it says.

  And Jason.

  I drink some more coffee. Try to think. How did he get my email address?

  How do I know it’s even him?

  Okay, I tell myself, okay. I handed out my card to a bunch of people in Yangshuo. He could’ve gotten my email address from any one of them. Even if he only had my name, he could’ve looked me up. I’m easy enough to find on the Web, what with the art business and charitable foundation and all.

  But I can’t know for sure that it’s him. Buzz Cut could’ve set up the account, emailed me to see what I’d do.

  I think about it, and I type, Where did you get my email? How do I know you’re who you say you are? Hit SEND.

  After that I heat up some more water, make myself another cup of coffee. And wait.

  It takes about an hour before a reply from Jason88 hits my inbox.

  A friend of mine you talked to gave me your info. I’m not saying who. You could tell somebody else and get them in trouble.

  You call my brother ‘Dog.’ You hooked up in Iraq, at Mortaritaville. He told me about it, how he felt bad, but how you guys are still buddies.

  I feel my cheeks flush, but it’s not like anyone’s around to see me. Shit, what did Dog tell him? About how we fucked in the laundry trailer? Not exactly one of the classier moments of my life, even if I was only nineteen at the time.

  You want to talk to me, you know where I am. Don’t bring anybody with you.

  I sit there, staring at the message on the screen. Gulp some bitter coffee.

  I don’t know where you are. And your brother’s the one you need to be talking to, or Natalie, I type. Not me.

  I try to think—what else should I say? Beg the guy to come home to the States? Where he’s a wanted ecoterrorist, with the FBI on his ass?

  Doug’s not in great shape, I type. He just wants to know you’re doing okay. He thinks the charges are bullshit. He wants to help.

  Which is also bullshit. Not that Dog doesn’t mean it. But that a guy who’s as fucked up as Dog, who can’t think straight and is currently in the hospital, who’s lacking a million-dollar bank account—how the fuck is he going to go up against the machine that’s out looking for Jason? That wants to grind him up and throw him in jail for twenty years at least?

  Look, we caught a terrorist!

  I want to help if I can, I finally type. But I don’t know where you are.

  Which is more or less true. I only have an idea.

  I hit SEND.

  And get back: Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable (state 14).

  Well, fuck.

  I search Help and find out the message means that the mailbox he was using is probably closed.

  So the guy writes me an email. Answers once. Closes his account.

  Leave it alone, I tell myself. You don’t know for sure it’s Jason. Okay, he knew some things about me and Dog, but there are ways someone else could have found that stuff out. Hacked our emails. Listened in on Skype. Found some mutual buddy of ours and just asked. I mean, who knows?

  Even if it’s him, does it make sense to risk it? Risk leading Eos to Jason? Risk getting those fuckers back on my ass?

  Don’t give them a trail to follow.

  I think about all this, and I have an idea. Maybe it’s a really bad one.

  I have a cheap cell phone I carry with me, ever since what happened last year. No GPS. No regular account. No way to trace it to me—I buy new SIM cards and minutes when I need them.

  Just in case.

  I wait an hour and use it to call Vicky Huang.

  “I have a big favor to ask Mr. Cao,” I say.

  “OF COURSE, OF COURSE!” Sidney’s gotten on the call himself. “Certainly I can help you with this.” I can picture him smiling on the other end of the line. “My jet is your jet.”

  YEAH, I TAKE SIDNEY Cao’s jet to Guiyang. I’d take it to Kaili, but the airport there isn’t finished yet. I sit in the leather seat, sip some crazy overpriced Bordeaux, eat filet mignon, and think, Fuck, well, that’s another Lao Zhang painting I’m probably going to have to give Sidney for his private museum. I drink some more wine, and I think, This whole thing—the jet, the palace, Sidney’s World—it’s the stuff Lao Zhang likes to skewer in his art, and here I am, going alon
g for the ride.

  I realize something else. I haven’t logged in to the Great Community for … days? Weeks? How long has it been? Sometime in Yangshuo.

  I’ve hardly even thought about it all.

  I guess because I’ve been getting my ass kicked in the real world. The electronics dumps in Guiyu. The bird sanctuary. New Century seeds. My mom. Creepy John. The dog.

  Except—it occurs to me as I’m sitting in a leather seat on a private jet, sipping this crazy-good, way-overpriced wine and eating my filet—what’s “real” about any of this? I think about Guiyu, about Wa Keung and Mei Yee and Moudzu, about how they live.

  This relates to the kid who fixed my laptop … how?

  How did I get here?

  Don’t think about it, I tell myself. Think about the mission.

  I GET TO GUIYANG at around 1:30 P.M. The white-gloved flight attendant waves good-bye to me as I limp down the boarding ramp, the hangar for Shining Star Aviation in the background.

  I take a taxi to the Guiyang train station. Just manage to catch the 3:00 P.M. train to Kaili. It gets me there at 5:30 P.M.

  The Kaili train station, not your first-or even second-tier-city train station. It’s this dumpy two-story building, ceiling fans hung by skinny poles from a whitewashed concrete ceiling, smelling like decades of cigarettes and piss. I push my way through the metal-grilled gate, stumble down the shallow cement stairs, out to the curb, blinking. Into another city where I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing.

  Kaili looks kind of small, I think. The train station doesn’t even have a real parking lot, just some spaces in a half circle out in front. A little chilly. I turn up the collar of my jacket. Stand there, daypack on my back, duffel on my shoulder, looking for a cab. Not a lot of traffic. Some blocky white buildings. It hardly feels like a city at all.

  IT’S A CITY, BUT a small one, for China, wedged into a space blasted out of granite mountains. Modest storefronts mostly. A larger indoor mall advertising brands I’ve never heard of that sits across what looks like the center of the city, where a bunch of streets run into each other, forming almost a circle. Occasional signs in English that make no sense, like 300 SEATS OUT OF PRINT WATERFRONT MANSION. It might be for real estate.