Too fucking late, I think. I already signed up for this.
I swear, if I make it through, this is the last time I go out on someone else’s mission. Next time I’m working my own.
Like I have a clue what kind of mission that might be.
I’m pretty sure that my mission of choice would not be meeting Cao Meimei for dinner at a pretentious restaurant on the top floor of a five-star hotel in the Central Business District.
The name of the restaurant is Estasi. Italian, maybe? I can’t tell from the decor. It’s just a lot of bullshit marble, fancy lighting, dark wooden alcoves with carvings of grapes and vines.
Just going into the hotel lobby made me want to run the other way. Marble everywhere, more gold trim than the Lama Temple, perfectly conditioned air, and the faint hum of Muzak. There’s an atrium that goes up a few stories with a giant fountain in the middle puking illuminated sprays of water. Rich people hanging out in the lobby, checking in, meeting for drinks in the downstairs bar, wearing well-cut suits and cute little dresses and hundred-dollar T-shirts, branding themselves with Gucci and Vuitton and Coach.
I’m hoping that Meimei beat me to Estasi. She has a reservation, and I’m supposed to join her. Otherwise I guess I’ll sit at the bar and nurse an overpriced glass of wine, because it’s not like this kind of place serves the local Yanjing Beer.
I approach the hostess station. A marble desk surrounded by a carved wooden screen depicting cherubs toting bunches of painted grapes.
“Ni hao,” I say to the hostess, your basic young, elegant, gorgeous Chinese woman. “I’m meeting a friend who has a reservation. Cao Meimei.”
It’s funny to watch. The hostess, already a paragon of good posture and polite attitude, still manages to straighten up, put a brighter smile on her perfect face.
“Welcome,” she says. “Please, follow me.”
We weave our way through the restaurant. Past plush wooden booths and more public tables that are covered in linen and decorated with silver candles and delicate sprays of fresh flowers. I’m wearing my designer duds from Sidney, last night’s shirt still wrinkled and smelling like cigarette butts. Maybe it’s dark enough so no one will notice.
Finally we reach what has to be the best table in the house. A table for two against a huge expanse of window looking out over the lights of the CBD.
The hostess clasps her hands and does a little bow to the figure sitting at one end. “Cao xiaojie, ninde keren laile.” Your guest has arrived.
If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought Meimei was a teenage boy, a pretty one, like a Korean pop star. She wears a white silk suit with a silky sky blue T-shirt beneath it, her short hair slicked back from her face.
She smiles and gestures at the seat opposite.
I sit, trying to do it gracefully, trying not to groan. I manage with a wince and a grunt.
“What would you like to drink?” Meimei asks.
I stretch out my leg. She has a wineglass to her right, half full of something white. Next to the table is a silver ice bucket on a stand with a partly submerged bottle inside.
“Whatever you’re having would be great.”
Meimei turns to the hostess. “Zai lai yige jiubei.”
The hostess nods and quickly retreats. I swear it’s less than a minute before a waitress hustles over with a wineglass and pours me some of whatever Meimei’s drinking.
Meimei lifts her glass. She’s lounging in her chair with one arm draped on the chair back. I lift my glass in return. Sip.
It’s wine. White. Tastes great. That’s all I need to know.
“I hear you are a soldier,” Meimei says.
This is not what I was expecting.
“I was in the National Guard.”
“Is this not a soldier?”
I shrug. Take another sip of wine. A large one. “We’re supposed to defend the home front. Bunch of us ended up in a war instead.”
“Ah.” She sips her wine. “So you were in combat?”
I’m twitching like I’m hooked up to a live current. I hate talking about those times. “I was a medic.”
“But you got hurt. How did that happen?”
“Mortar.”
“I see.” She looks a little disappointed. Why? Because I wasn’t out killing bad guys when I got blown up?
“I was outside the wire plenty of times,” I mumble. Like that matters. Like that makes me some badass.
Outside the wire wasn’t where the worst shit happened anyway.
“I envy you this experience.”
I feel this rush of anger so strong that I’m sure it shows on my face. I swallow hard. Don’t fuck this up, McEnroe, I tell myself.
“There’s nothing about it to envy,” I say. And I drink.
She leans forward, her face lit up with a weird enthusiasm. “But you serve your country. You prove yourself in challenging situation, like a man. I think this is admirable.”
If she knew what I did during the war …
“It’s not what people think it’s like,” I finally mutter.
I glance to my right, at the view of the CBD and the night sky. Lights and neon, giant characters and logos, skyscrapers like ghosts, softened by smog. For a moment I feel like I’m floating in space.
“I fly small planes,” she says. “In fact, I have thought about applying to China’s air force.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Flying is wonderful.” She pauses abruptly. “Shall we order appetizers?”
“Sure.”
What I want is another drink. I’m feeling rattled. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that she knows something about my history. Sidney’s got the money to hire any kind of private detective or private spy he wants. So does Meimei, I’m guessing. She would’ve had to have worked fast, but with all the information that’s out there on the Internet? It wouldn’t take much time.
I let Meimei order the appetizers. I’m not hungry, and I don’t know what half the stuff is anyway. (“Duck Liver Terrine with Sweet Kaffir Lime Liqueur.” “Truffled Capicola with Lenticchie di Montagna and Chopped Preboggion.” “Crispy Sweetbread and Lobster Ragu.”) It all tastes good, but mostly I just want to drink.
Except not too much. I can’t afford to lose it.
“So you help my father with his museum project,” Meimei says after doing the swirl-sniff-taste of a new wine, a red one this time. She nods at the waitress, who pours fresh glasses for both of us.
“I’m … consulting.” Which seems as good a way as any to put it.
“Interesting. I know that you represent some modern Chinese artists here in Beijing.”
I nod. I’ve got this hollow feeling in my gut, like she knows all about Lao Zhang and the trouble he’s in. If she had me checked out, she’d have to know something. There’ve been a few articles, here and there, about the “disappeared” Chinese artist, the rumors surrounding that, and I’ve sure been asked about it enough times. Is he in jail? Is he in hiding? Is he in trouble? Do you know where he is?
Meimei holds her wine up to the table light, tilting it and watching the rivulets of wine run down the inside of the glass. “The legs,” Harrison explained to me once. Though he never did explain why anyone was supposed to care about this.
“Art is not really an interest of mine,” she says. “Of course I like to have nice things. But my father is really obsessed about this. Don’t you think?”
“He’s … uh, an enthusiastic collector.”
For the first time, she smiles in a way that suggests she might actually be amused. “Yes. I think he always hoped Gugu would take an interest in this, too. Art is not for Tiantian. And it is not for me. But Gugu, he has this artistic temperament.”
And here’s where I need to think fast. Because this whole thing started as a pretext for me to evaluate Gugu’s creepy American friend, Marsh, and now, somehow, the whole crazy family’s involved in a museum project that I pretty much pulled out of my ass.
“I think your father would just
like to see the three of you work together on this, a little. I mean, it’s his life’s work, and it’s not like it needs to be yours. But he sees it as … you know, his legacy, and you’re his children, and …”
Which is where I totally run out of things to say.
“Yes, yes,” she says with a dismissive wave. “I can call Tiantian. Even though he does not approve of me. Shall we order our primo?”
“Sounds good.” Whatever it is.
Meimei pays for dinner. No big surprise there. I thank her as enthusiastically as I can fake.
“It was my pleasure,” she says, taking my hand. “You are an interesting person, with interesting experiences.”
“Not really,” I manage. “That’s nice of you to say.”
She lets go. I reach into my little black leather messenger bag, another gift from Sidney (Vicky didn’t dig the old canvas one I usually travel with) and pull out a card case, extract a card. “In case you need to get a hold of me,” I say, doing the two-handed handover.
She studies it politely. “I think I will. For our meeting with Tiantian.”
★ ★ ★
What a fucking waste of time.
I mean, I don’t particularly want to meet Tiantian. I don’t want to work on Sidney’s museum project. I especially don’t want to spend any more time evaluating Marsh for his moral character. Yet for some reason, I need to do all these things to fulfill my obligations to Sidney Cao. Who, okay, it must be said, did save my life, or his people did anyway. But with Lao Zhang coming back to Beijing, my life just torqued into another level of complicated.
I’m thinking all this the next morning while I’m taking Mimi out for a walk. We’re doing our usual thing, wandering through the hutongs around the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, and on top of everything else I’m feeling all kinds of guilty for not taking very good care of my dog. I mean, I’m not terrible. She gets her walks. She gets as good dog food as I can find here, and lots of people food for treats. But it’s not like I take her out for a long time or she gets to run around much. My mom and Andy probably spend more time with her than I do.
Face it, I’m not very good at taking care of much of anything.
I’m thinking this as she trots ahead of me down a narrow, grey-walled alley, then stops to sniff what must be a really interesting lamp pole from the attention she’s paying to it.
I stare at a tangled nest of wire hanging under the eaves of a grey-washed siheyuan, one of the traditional Beijing courtyard houses that are almost all gone now, bulldozed for high-rises and subways. A couple strands of the wire nest are plugged into some kind of power box, but what are the rest of them for? I seem to wonder about this kind of shit a lot. But I hardly ever get answers.
Mimi tugs at the leash. I look up and see her tail wagging. And then I see why.
“Yili.”
“John.”
He stands there in his black jeans and black T-shirt and leather jacket, weight on the balls of his feet, fists loosely clenched. It looks like he hasn’t shaved today. His beard’s not that heavy. Just a light black shadow that outlines the hollows under his cheeks, the circle of his chin.
I admit, I’m kind of a sucker for that.
Mimi noses his thigh, then his crotch before she rises up on her hind legs and puts her front paws on his hips. He scratches behind her ears as her tail swishes back and forth.
“Can we talk?” he asks, except it’s barely a request.
I shrug. “Sure. Fine.”
We go to a bar/café tucked back in the hutongs that’s nearly empty and big enough to find a private space. I mean, someone could be watching, I guess. There are surveillance cameras all over Beijing, and you never know. I see the black dome of one when we enter. But John takes a look around the newly remodeled, faux-industrial space and nods. Apparently Mimi’s no problem either. She trots by my side, hugging my hip, and no one says a thing.
We sit at a table in the back, underneath the factory-style staircase done with galvanized metal, black rubber treads, and thick cable railings. John orders tea. I order a Mexican coffee. The waiter, your typical slender young guy with lank hair drifting over his collar, knows what that is, but I’m kind of hoping John doesn’t.
Though why should he give a fuck, really?
The waiter brings us our drinks. John waits for him to retreat to the bar. Then:
“What are you doing with the Cao family?”
I shrug again. “Consulting on a museum project.”
“I told you to stay away from trouble.” I swear, his jaw’s clenched so tight that a muscle’s doing a little tap dance. “Yet you have dinner with Cao Meimei.”
I take a slug of my tequila-infused coffee. “Yeah, well, she’s part of the project.”
“The Caos are completely corrupt! Rich people like them are parasites!”
“True, but they’re the ones with money for museum projects.”
“Parasites,” he repeats, as though he didn’t hear me. “Especially the fu er dai. They don’t work themselves, just get everything from their parents. And they all profit off the backs of the workers.”
“Spoken like a true Communist,” I mutter. But it’s not like I disagree. “So you’ve been spying on me?” Which is not a huge surprise either. It’s what John does, right? The dude’s a professional stalker.
John stares at me with that black-eyed intensity that’s either creepy or sexy—I can’t decide. Which pretty much sums us up.
“I only look out for you, and you already know why,” he says.
I wish I did. I wish I could be sure. But no matter what John says, no matter how much he claims to care, I still don’t know what his game really is. I mean, he’s a Chinese secret service agent Taoist sex freak who may or may not support antigovernment dissidents and who really seems to enjoy fucking me. Or with me. Another thing I can’t decide.
“Besides, Cao Meimei may be lesbian,” he adds darkly.
“Wow, that would be shocking. Your point?”
“Just what I told you.” He’s wearing his concerned face. “You must be careful with people like these.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
★
ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER party. I think about buying myself a new shirt.
This time Tiantian’s the host.
Meimei called me herself to give me the invitation, the afternoon following our dinner. It’s going to be at a house Tiantian owns. And it’s happening tomorrow. “Oh, yes,” she said with a laugh. “As soon as Tiantian heard that you meet with our father, Gugu, and me already, then of course he couldn’t be left out.”
Great. The last thing I need is to get involved in some kind of weird Cao-family sibling rivalry.
But does that mean I need a new shirt? Because the new black one is too dirty to go a third night, and the white one I got in Xingfu Cun I wadded up and threw in the hamper after karaoke with Sidney in Shanghai.
“That’s a lot of late nights for you,” my mom says when I tell her about my plans tomorrow night. She’s distracted. She’s experimenting with making tortillas again.
“Yeah. Can’t be helped.”
Maybe I’ll resurrect my old T-shirt with the weeping black-and-white cartoon cat that has the caption BLACK CAT, WHITE CAT, IF IT CATCHES MICE, IT’S A GOOD CAT. It’s a Deng Xiaoping reference. But maybe that wouldn’t go over well with Tiantian. Now, if it were Gugu’s party, it would probably be okay. He might not like contemporary art, but he sure seems to be into the hipster aspect of it all.
“Do you think I could get one of those jianbing grills?” my mom suddenly asks.
“What?”
A jianbing is like a Beijing breakfast burrito—these egg-crepe things with chives and sort of a crunchy fried skeleton of a savory waffle, spread with hot sauce and folded up into a little bag that you can take with you to keep your hands warm in the winter.
“You know, those round, stone … I don’t know, griddles? The things they cook them on. Where they spread out the crepe.”
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“Oh. Yeah. Sure. I mean, I’m sure you could find one. Andy would know.”
“Because I’m wondering if I could use it to make tortillas.”
“Yeah, I mean, why not?” I’m still thinking about the whole shirt issue. I decide against the T-shirt. Too risky.
The weird thing is, Tiantian’s place isn’t far from me, just a subway stop over off Guozijian, where the Imperial University is, right next door to the Confucius Temple. Both of them are museums now. I went to the Confucius Temple once, in the dead of winter, with my ex, Trey. We wandered through these ranks of white stone tablets with engraved calligraphy on them that looked like stretched-out tombstones, freezing our asses off in the bitter winds that were blowing down from Mongolia. We were holding hands with our gloves on, and I remember the texture of the scratchy cable-knit yarn pressing against the skin where Trey’s fingers circled mine. I don’t know why I remember those details so specifically. It’s not like I care about the guy anymore.
Now it’s spring, and the weather changes from day to day. A warm night tonight. I’m already sweating into my black Sidney shirt (I had it cleaned) as I limp through the shanzhai Ming-dynasty gate that frames the entrance to Guozijian.
They’ve restored this street, added some polished granite markers and wall plaques explaining the history of the street, and spiffed up some of the surrounding hutongs. Just past the expensive but historic teahouse from the Ming or Qing dynasty (as usual, I forget), I take a turn down an alley and then down another one that breaks off at a sharp angle. Easier to find it myself than to ask a cabdriver. I wander a bit farther until I see the fancy stone lion dogs with one paw resting on a drum. A red gate with brass fittings. A murmur of erhu music from the other side.
Tiantian’s place.
The real giveaway’s the guys in black suits wearing earpieces standing on either side of the door. The Caos tend to travel with a security detail.
They check my name against an iPhone app that has my photo on it—shit, for all I know, it takes a retinal scan. I pass, apparently, because one of them tugs on the thick brass ring to open the heavy red gate.
Dragon Day Page 7
