Dragon Day

by Lisa Brackmann

  “I run,” she says. “I just run. I get to the gate of the siheyuanr, and I know if I am running, maybe the guards will stop me. So I walk.”

  “And they let you out?”

  “Yes.” She pauses to get a Kleenex out of her little Gucci purse. Wipes her nose. Not a country girl, no blowing her snot onto the pavement for this one.

  “I just walk as fast as I can away from that place,” she says. “I get to Yonghegong, to a taxi, and then I think, Celine. I leave my friend behind. I am … terrible.”

  “You were scared.”

  Because I know what it’s like. I know how it is to be young and dumb and in over your head. And I’m still beating myself up for what I did.

  For what I didn’t do.

  “I call her,” Betty says. “She does not answer. I don’t know what to do. So …” She hangs her head. “I just go home.”

  I’m sweating under the embroidered band and dangling beads and cloud of feathers of my goofy fake Qing hat. I take it off and lay it on the bench next to me.

  “Did you talk to Celine after the party … about what happened?”

  “Yes. She calls me. Very late, almost morning, but I am so glad to hear her voice.”

  Betty’s crying again. She covers her face with her hands.

  “She tells me yes. A bad thing happened. She tells me I should be very careful around the Caos.”

  Now Betty’s doing a quick, nervous scan of the perimeter again. Searching for bandits.

  She looks at me. “Especially Tiantian,” she says.

  “Oh, well, that’s just great.” I throw up my hands. “So why are you here?”

  Betty rolls her eyes like I am too impossibly stupid. “Gugu wants me to come.”

  “You think if you stand by your man, he’s gonna marry you or something?”

  She flinches at that. Bingo.

  Anything’s possible, I guess.

  “Look, I know you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do, but if I were you, I’d get out of here and I’d stay out of Beijing for a while. You don’t want to be in the middle of all this.”

  “Gugu can protect me from his brother,” she says.

  Here’s hoping. Assuming Gugu’s hands are clean and it’s not just Tiantian she needs to worry about.

  That’s when I get one of those sudden drops in my gut, that sickening rush, because I’m the one who needs to worry, and I’ve been sitting here too long.

  “Good luck with that.” I push myself to my feet, wait for my bum leg to stop spasming, just trying to breathe through it.

  “Please think about what I said,” I say when I can.

  She nods.

  I pick up my fake Qing hat and start to walk away.

  “Celine say something else.”

  I stop. “What?”

  “She won’t willingly let them just do this thing. She says she cause them trouble. She …” Betty ducks her head. “I don’t know how to say.”

  “Tell me in Chinese.”

  “It’s old-fashioned, what she says.” Betty clasps her hands together, like a schoolgirl sitting at a classroom desk, and recites: “Shanyou shanbao, eyou ebao, bushi bubao, shihou weidao.”

  I remember this one.

  Good will be rewarded with good, and evil with evil. If the reward is not forthcoming, then the time has not yet come.

  I finish it: “Shihou yi dao, yiqie dou bao.”

  When the time comes, you’ll get your reward.

  “Yes.” She frowns. “But I think this is stupid.”

  “Why?”

  “Celine is good. She should get a good reward. But she does not.”

  ★ ★ ★

  I’m walking as fast as I can to the exit. At least I hope that’s where I’m heading. The signs aren’t very good, and this place is huge. I’m close to the back of the complex, paralleling the high grey wall with guard towers that looks like it would encircle a Ming town. It’s close to 5:00 P.M., and I’m wondering what time they kick the tourists out. I’m not seeing anybody back here. No tourists. No film crews. No staff. It’s so quiet. That’s something you don’t get a lot of in China, silence. And it’s making me nervous.

  I arrive at a metal signboard with a bunch of different destinations: ANCIENT CULTURE STREET. SHAOLIN MONKS TEMPLE. NINGBO CATHOUSE.

  And NORTH GATE EXIT. The arrow for that points in the same direction as the Shaolin Monks Temple.

  The “temple” grounds are deserted, too.

  They did a good job with the place, I think. Close up, I’m sure you could tell the difference, but from a small distance it looks like a typical Chinese temple complex: red walls and wooden shuttered doors, eaves painted blue and green and gold, green roof tiles. No Shaolin monks, though. No signs of life at all, except for a cawing of crows and the beating of their wings.

  I walk through a gate and into a hall with painted wooden statues of gods and demons. I’ve never been too clear on which is which.

  On the other side of that building is a courtyard, and at the back of that is a large towerlike pagoda on top a quadrangle of stairs. I exit the hall, doing my one-step-at-a-time routine down the nine flat steps, and head toward the pagoda.

  I’m about halfway there when something tugs at my foot. I look down and see that my shoe’s untied on the bad-leg side and that my other foot’s stepping on the lace.

  I prop my foot on a rock, boosting it up with an assist by locking my hands behind my thigh. Bend over and retie the shoe.

  And hear an echo of footsteps.

  I jerk upright, stumble a little as I step down on my bad leg, and run.

  Yeah, maybe I panic. But given how bad I run, I don’t have the luxury to stop and look and see who it is.

  I bolt down the path, jink left behind a giant fake iron incense burner, peek around it.

  There’s a guy coming out of the first hall.

  The light’s not that great, and I can’t really see much about him, just a guy, a little stocky, short hair, short work jacket, walking steadily down the stairs. Tiantian’s driver? I have no idea.

  I’m not going to take a chance.

  I don’t know if he’s spotted me yet. It didn’t seem like he had.

  There’s a path that rises up and curves around to the left side of the pagoda, with some tree cover. The main path goes straight up the middle to the entrance.

  Okay, I tell myself. Okay. Go left.

  I run, Qing robe flapping.

  If he’s chasing me, he’ll catch up. I need to find a crowd. I need to find the exit. Just get myself out of here.

  I reach the pagoda. And see that behind the pagoda there’s a little more garden, some trees and giant rocks, and then there’s a temple wall.

  The edge of the lot. No exit.

  I turn to the pagoda.

  At the base of the steps, I see something I don’t expect.

  An entrance cut into the steps, rustred iron gate swung open, stairs leading down. Framed like an Egyptian tomb, with a sign above saying GUESTS STOP! in English and something about no smoking in Chinese.

  Well, what else can I do?

  I head down.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  ★

  IT’S NOT COMPLETELY dark. There are work lights here and there, casting a dim glow that lets me see concrete pillars, stacked scenery flats, odd bits of props and equipment, a costume rack, spread out in this huge space running under the pagoda and beyond—it has to be over the size of a football field. Nobody’s working down here right now that I can see, though. There’s a small square of light on the other side.

  I peel off the robe and toss it over a costume rack, throw the hat in its general direction. It’s not like I really care about the deposit.

  I head toward the square of light.

  I’m about halfway there when I see that it’s an exit, only this one has its rustred metal gate closed. Doesn’t mean it’s locked, I tell myself. But if it is?

  That’s when I hear footsteps. Behind me, I think. With the e
cho it’s hard to tell.

  Could be anybody. Could be the guy. Could be a worker. I start jogging toward the exit. Not a full-on run, an “I’m working, gotta get somewhere” trot. To my left there’s a couple restaurant-freezer-size metal things painted submarine grey. Generators? They hum. A bundle of cables the thickness of a python runs from them along the floor to the right.

  Okay, they have to be going someplace. Like out of here.

  What I can see by the work lights is that the cables run over to the far wall and into a corridor. I can’t see where that goes.

  I jog alongside the cables.

  When I get to the far wall, I see that the corridor slopes gently up, a long ramp into sunlight. The cables snake up with it.

  I reach the top, and I stand in the entrance for a second, blinking in the late-afternoon light, and there’s a volley of gunfire.

  “Ting ji!”

  I fall back against the wall, and I almost go to the ground before I get a grip: It’s a set. This is a film. The cables lead to lights and cameras. Between them I can see a half dozen actors dressed in Republic-era police costumes and one guy, presumably the revolutionary hero, all dropping their guns to their sides and shuffling around, waiting for the next take.

  I circle the area of the action, a square in what looks like an Old Hong Kong or Old Guangdong set. As I look back, I see the stocky guy with the work jacket approaching one of the crew, a young woman with dyed pink hair who is carrying a clipboard. He has a couple rifles propped on his shoulder. Maybe he picked them up under the pagoda.

  Not a bad guy. Just a crew member delivering props.

  “It’s only a fucking movie,” I mutter.

  I need to find the exit and get out of here before it turns into something else.

  I find an exit. It’s not the way I came in. Smaller, without the crowds and tour buses. Across the street is a line of beat-up two-story shops: a noodle joint, a little convenience store, and a drugstore. Beyond that, another busier-looking street. No cabs in sight.

  I walk over to the convenience store and buy a bag of spicy peanuts and a bottle of water. “Please, can you tell me, how do I get to the train station?” I ask the clerk.

  “No train station here. You have to go to the city for that.”

  Which is how I end up first on a shuttle bus next to a twenty-something girl whose suitcases are piled where my feet should be, then on a city bus so crammed with people that I can barely lift my arm to drink my water, old metal sheets rattling over every bump, diesel fumes leaking in through the cracks. I look around at the riders on the bus: office workers, nongmin peasant farmers, students, a couple old aunties, some guys in oil-stained coveralls, a few little kids, ordinary people just trying to get through the day, all of us squeezed together in this jolting, shuddering tin can, and I think, Far cry from a fucking Hummer limo, right?

  But maybe this is where I belong. Maybe even where I’d rather be.

  I just make the last train to Shanghai, a two-and-a-half-hour ride that will get me into Hongqiao station around 10:00 P.M. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.

  I’m thinking I panicked, and maybe I should’ve stayed at Movie Universe. I don’t know that Tiantian’s driver was connected to Uncle Yang—he could just be a driver, like that film-crew guy was just a film-crew guy.

  I’ve been so cranked up for so long that I’m thinking movies are real and seeing bandits that aren’t there.

  Maybe Tiantian just wanted to talk to me, and Sidney sure as shit expects me to talk to Tiantian.

  I lean back in my seat, which isn’t bad—this is one of the new fast trains. Close my eyes. Think about what I know.

  Celine saw something bad and told Betty to watch out for all the Caos, but especially Tiantian.

  So does that mean Tiantian killed the waitress?

  “The waitress.” I can’t even remember her name.

  Celine promised that she’d cause trouble for the guilty. That they would get what they deserved. Eventually anyway.

  I think about that one. Who’s causing trouble here? That would be me. And John. John because I got him involved.

  And why am I causing trouble? Because my card was found on the body of a dead girl.

  If my card hadn’t been there, would the body ever have been traced back to the Caos?

  Maybe that wasn’t about implicating me in a murder. Maybe it was about my weird skill set of pissing people off and causing trouble without meaning to.

  Lastly: when Betty left the art gallery with Gugu, Celine was still alive and Marsh was there with her.

  Why was I at Tiantian’s party in the first place?

  Because Sidney asked me to look into Marsh.

  You don’t know that Marsh killed Celine, I tell myself. She could’ve OD’d on her own, without his help.

  I don’t know anything for sure, but what do I think?

  I think Tiantian killed the waitress and Marsh killed Celine.

  But here’s the part that doesn’t fit. Why would Marsh care enough about protecting Tiantian that he’d kill Celine to do it?

  So what do I do now?

  Once I get to Shanghai, I’ve got the same problem I had in Beijing with staying off Uncle Yang’s radar—if I check in to a hotel, I have to show my passport. Maybe I’m being too paranoid about that, but as we all know, it’s not paranoia when they really are following you, right?

  I could crash in a bathhouse. They’re not what you might think; there’s a side for women and a side for men and meeting rooms where you can meet up and hang out if you want. I’ve done it before, gotten a massage, sweated in the steam room; I could see an acupuncturist or even get a facial and just kill time in one of the meeting rooms in a bathrobe and slippers, doze in a reclining chair in front of a TV broadcasting the latest Korean soap.

  I could call a friend. I have a few in Shanghai. Most notably Lucy Wu. I trust Lucy. Well, as much as I trust anybody. What I don’t want to do is get her dragged into my shit.

  She already is pretty tangled up in a lot of it. She’s my partner in selling Lao Zhang’s work. She’s his friend, I’m pretty sure one of his exes. That stopped bothering me a long time ago.

  I start thinking about it all again, though, about me and Lao Zhang, what we ever really were to each other, what it all means, and then I shake myself. This is not the time.

  Okay, I can find someplace to crash tonight. At Lucy’s, at a bathhouse, whatever. But ever since Tiantian’s party—ever since I got sucked into Sidney World, really—I’ve only been able to think about what I do next. Where I go. How I get out of whatever fucked-up situation I’m in at the moment. I need to think beyond “Where am I going to sleep tonight?”

  I need to draw this thing to a close, one way or another.

  So what are my choices?

  Do I call one of the Caos and start this circus all over again? Hang out with Gugu and Meimei and wonder when Tiantian’s going to sic Uncle Yang on me? I mean, what are the odds that I’m going to find out any more than I already know? That Tiantian’s suddenly going to break down and confess all or that one of his siblings will rat on him—that is, if they know anything about what happened.

  Fuck that. I’m done.

  Like always, I think about running.

  But there’s my mom and Andy and Mimi, on their forced vacation in Xingfu Cun.

  Whatever I do, I have to get them out of there first.

  “Hi, Sidney.”

  “Ellie. Do you have news for me?”

  “Yes, I do.” I pause. Stare out the window at the dark landscape, the anonymous towns and half-completed high-rises passing by like ghosts of some imagined future.

  “Here’s the thing,” I say. “We need to talk in person.”

  “This is not difficult. You can come to Xingfu Cun.”

  “Yeah. I will. No problem.”

  I stare out the window some more. Think, I’m on a train to nowhere.

  Time to get off.

  “I
’ll come to Xingfu Cun, and I’ll tell you what I found out. But you need to let my mom and her boyfriend and my dog be on their way.”

  There’s a long silence.

  “I already tell you, I am just keeping them safe.”

  “I know. And I appreciate that. I just … I don’t want them involved in this.”

  “Okay,” he says. “You can tell me where you are, and I can send the car or the plane. Then you can come to Xingfu Cun, say hello to your mother before she leave.”

  “How about this? You send your car or your plane. When I meet it, you let them go.”

  Another stretch of silence.

  “If this is what you want,” he finally says.

  “I do.”

  “I only hope you have something interesting to tell me,” he says.

  Yeah. So do I.

  I end up calling Lucy Wu.

  I don’t want to get her in trouble. I really don’t. I tell myself one of the reasons I want to see her is to give her the debriefing. If she stays involved with Sidney, she should know what she’s stepped in.

  I tell myself that, but the truth is, I’d like to see a friendly face before I go off to confront Sidney in Xingfu Cun.

  I call on my safe number. She’s not going to recognize it, so who knows if she’ll answer?

  But she does. “Wei?”

  “Lucy, it’s Ellie. Are you free later? There’s some things I need to talk to you about.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  ★

  “JUST COME TO my apartment when you get here,” Lucy had said. “I’m already home.”

  I’ve never been to Lucy’s place. We’re not that close. Most of the hanging out we’ve done has been at her gallery and at bars or restaurants.

  I take the subway. I don’t want to risk a taxi and a driver who could maybe identify me and tell someone where I go.

  Lucy lives close to the French Concession, on a smaller lane lined with shade trees and mostly older, two-story buildings: yellow and grey, plaster and brick, with shops on the bottom and apartments on top. Scalloped roofs in places, old-fashioned wood-framed windows and doors that open onto tiny balconies bristling with laundry poles that have inside-out pants hanging from them like banners. Run-down and kind of charming, the lighting mostly soft and small. Every time I see a neighborhood like this in a big Chinese city, I wonder how long it will last before it gets chai’d, knocked down and replaced by anonymous, disposable high-rises.