by Liu Zhenyun
“What’s this?” Zhao started to get nasty. “I’m not good enough to drink with you?”
He picked up a stool to threaten Liu, who was forced to drink. After the first glass came a second, and then another, followed by yet another. There was no change in Zhao, but Liu got seriously drunk, fatigued by the five-day search and a particularly tiring night running all over Beijing. He’d always thought that getting drunk was a bad thing, but on this night it helped him forget his problems and actually cheered him. So they had two more toasts, and Liu forgot all about why they were there, as well as his relationship to the man he was with. Having only met a few times, they didn’t know each other well, and Zhao owed Liu money. But now they were becoming fast friends. As they talked, Liu strained to remember the question he’d wanted to ask Zhao. Then it came to him—he wanted to ask why Zhao and Ma had divorced and why he wanted to remarry her. He should never have opened his mouth, because when he did, Zhao broke down and wept.
“I fell into my own trap.” He reached out for Liu’s hand. “I got divorced because of another woman, a woman with big breasts, unlike my wife, who looks like a man at first glance. Back then I had all the money I needed, so divorce and marriage meant nothing to me. But now, I’m broke and last month the slut ran away. I looked all over for her, but not a trace. So I’ve lost two women. A huge loss. I have no one. Why? Why me?”
He was not done. “Ma Manli is no good. She and that slut were friends, so maybe they plotted against me.” He continued angrily, “She shacked up with someone three years ago and thought she could pull a fast one. Some men favor men in drag.”
Liu was confused by the jumbled story, except that Ma Manli seemed much more complex than the salon owner he thought he knew. He was reminded of something else when Zhao mentioned his second wife running away. His own wife had also run away.
“My wife ran away too. You and me, we’re in the same boat.” He paused, realizing that his wife hadn’t run away, that she’d been taken from him. He shook his head. “Not really the same.”
Then anger took hold of him, not at Zhao but at the world in general. “Didn’t someone steal my wife from me? The thought makes my heart ache; it still hurts after all these years.”
“It’s pointless to go on living.” Zhao shook his head. “I want to die.”
The comment was too much for Liu, who shared the sentiment.
“I know what you mean. I was this close to hanging myself six years ago.”
The more they talked, the closer they felt to each other. Zhao got up and walked unsteadily around the table to sit next to Liu.
“We’re friends.” He put his hand out. “How about lending me some money. I make money with every business I start, so you won’t regret it.”
“I believe you.” Liu thumped his chest. “I’ll give you a loan.” Then he began to cry. “I do want to lend you money, but didn’t I tell you it’s all gone?”
It had been days since he was able to pour his heart out, so with the help of alcohol, he released his pent-up emotions by telling everything to Zhao Xiaojun, hardly more than a stranger, from the loss of the pack to obtaining the purse, and from there to the arrival of his no-good son with his girlfriend. He told him things he hadn’t revealed to his closest friends. But he began to slur his words and became incoherent. At one point he lost the thread of his narration, making him anxious as he tried to get back to where he had been. Finally when he got to what happened that day, it was lights out and he realized that Zhao had fallen asleep on the table. Liu nudged him to wake him up, only to see him slump to the floor like oozing mud.
19
Lao Xing
Lao Xing worked for Worried Wise Men Inquiry Agency as an investigator, what’s known as a private eye in the West. It was a profession that had cropped up only recently in China. Originally from Hebei, he was a forty-five-year-old man who looked fifty-four, with a wrinkled face and gray hair that nearly fused with his brows. He’d look like a peasant from the plains of Hebei if he put on a farmer’s outfit, and a steel mill worker if he was in overalls. Even when he wore a coat and tie, all he could manage was to look like a migrant worker visiting relatives in Beijing, not an effective and very clever private eye. Which was why Yan Ge was so disappointed at their first meeting. Then he noticed that Lao Xing was given to laughing, not a problem, by any means, except that Xing took pleasure in sniggering. You’d be having a serious conversation and he’d find a hole in your narrative that would make him snigger with his hand over his mouth—infuriating. Yan Ge was talking very fast, given his anxiety over the lost drive.
“Slow down. There’s no need to rush.”
How could Yan not rush? People’s futures were tied to a drive he had used to blackmail others, and which could now be used against him. There were more than a dozen video clips, some showing Director Jia and Lao Lin with prostitutes, which wasn’t Yan’s concern. Before the scenes with the prostitutes, on the other hand, were recordings of him bribing both men. Taking bribes was a crime, so was handing them out, and in his case, the amount could easily send him to the execution ground. Jia and Lin deserved to be punished for taking money, but Yan, who had given them the money, was also in hot water, and he felt that was unfair. The threat, originally targeted at the two men only, now had the same lethal power against him. A bigger problem for Yan was that it would be easier to find the drive if it had fallen into the hands of certain people than when it involved a thief, whose whereabouts was hard to pinpoint. He had to find the thief.
If whoever stole the purse was computer savvy and saw the contents, Yan would be in more trouble than he could imagine. But if the thief didn’t know anything about computers and threw the thing away, he’d be in even more trouble if it landed in the hands of a particular group of people. It had been used purely for a business deal with Jia and Lin to exchange for an eighty-million-yuan loan, which could bring temporary relief to Yan’s financial troubles. Now that the drive was missing, he’d lost his leverage, bringing the deal to a halt. His survival, originally in Jia’s hands, had now transferred into the hands of the thief. The night before, when Lin heard about the theft of the drive at the villa, he’d laughed over the absurdity.
“All right,” he said. “We’re no longer enemies and have to join forces.”
But then he grew suspicious, unsure if it was yet another scheme. He hurried off after gathering up the six USB drives and the laptop. At five the next morning he phoned Yan to tell him that he’d related the incident to Director Jia, who was giving Yan ten days to find the drive. If it was recovered during that time frame, their deal would go through as planned; if not, there’d be no more need to keep looking and they could just wait for the hammer to fall. Jia’s words made Yan break out in a cold sweat, not because he’d set a deadline, which was a sign of apprehension, but because it was ten days. No more, no less. Why would the hammer fall after ten days? Yan could not figure out the importance of the date or what was going on in the mind of the old fox. He was sure only that Jia had his reasons, for their situations were not the same.
Then there was Qu Li, who had also changed after the theft; their arrangement had to be put on hold. Theoretically, since she was neither Jia nor Lin, what was on the drive didn’t concern her at all. On the other hand, she was clearly involved, because she was the one who’d instructed the assistant general manager to make the recording. She’d been the one who’d started it all and also the one who’d lost the thing, so she should have been feeling contrite. But no, she wasn’t anxious at all. To her this cache of stolen secrets should be made public. After Lin left that night, she sniggered.
“Looks like we’re all going down together.” She added, “That’s all right with me. The sooner it’s over, the better.”
She went to bed. How someone who could fight with hair stylists could remain calm over something this big amazed Yan. After all those years of marriage she remained an enigma. He had to forget the twenty-five million for now. Besides, if the drive w
asn’t found, Jia, the big ship, would sink, and her small straw of a loan could not save him, which was why he’d let it drop for the moment. He had to look at the big picture. Once the drive was found, he could resume discussions with Jia and Lin, and with her as well.
He could not get the police involved, which was why he’d decided to use a private investigator; and not just any PI. He recalled meeting the owner of an investigative agency at a banquet hosted by a friend two years before. When asked what case he was working on, the oily-faced man from Tianjin had regaled the dinner guests with a series of outlandish anecdotes, most of which involved affairs and made everyone laugh. When the banquet was over, the man told Yan:
“I made up everything I said back there. I may be engaged in a sordid profession, but it has its set of ethics.”
Yan quickly forgot about the man after an exchange of business cards, since he had no need for a PI. But now he drove to the stud farm, where he dumped the contents of a drawer to the floor and found the man’s card. He was mildly amused to note the name of his agency: “Worried Wise Men,” a take on the saying that a wise man can think of everything and still make a mistake. So true. Yan had to agree.
He dialed the number and the call went through. The man remembered meeting him at the banquet two years earlier. Yan told him he needed a PI on a personal matter, nothing serious but urgent, and he’d like someone who knew a trick or two. Yan was pleased to find the man reassuring, for he did not press him for details. He simply said that a man who knew a trick or two would be there in an hour. When an hour passed, Yan called back and learned that the man who knew more tricks than anyone else at the agency was working on a case in Baoding. He would be pulled off that case and brought back to Beijing without delay. Yan waited.
Around noontime, the doorbell rang, and Yan opened the door to see a man he first mistook as a gardener who had knocked on the wrong door. But when he handed Yan his business card, Yan saw that he was from the agency. He did not look like someone who knew a single a trick. He was bathed in sweat, having rushed back from Baoding, and his suit made him look like a migrant worker. Yan was unhappy with the man for sending someone like this. But after they sat down and chatted for ten minutes, his view changed.
Yan began by beating around the bush, instead of talking about the USB drive. The man, Lao Xing, talked slowly and loved to snigger, but he grasped Yan’s main point right off; in fact, he only sniggered when Yan was borderline incoherent. After Yan finished, Lao Xing summarized the key issues in a few words. He may have looked simple but he was shrewd; his working-class appearance could have been the very reason he was perfect for the job of a PI. Never judge a man by his looks. When he was done with the chitchat Yan probed the man’s experience.
“What sort of cases have you worked on?”
“What else?” he said as he gazed at the horses outside. “Mostly extramarital affairs.”
“How many did you catch last year?”
“I don’t have the exact number,” Xing said, “but it has to be over thirty.” He was not shy about his successes.
“Our society is a mess,” Yan said with a sigh. “You probably stir up more trouble than the adulterers.”
“You’re right, Mr. Yan.” Xing nodded his agreement. “I really shouldn’t be ruining people’s families over money.”
“Your work must be interesting, searching for people all day long.” Yan studied Xing’s face.
“Why would that be interesting?” Xing retorted mildly. “It depends on who you’re searching for. It’s not like looking up old friends for a get-together. How much fun can it be to search high and low for a total stranger?”
Yan had to agree with Xing. He asked about Xing’s past. Xing was obliging. An archeology major in college, he was assigned a job at the National Science Academy Archeology Institute, but it was lonely work, dealing with the dead. As someone from the countryside, poverty held no appeal, especially since his parents could have used some financial help. So, he quit and started a business. For the next ten years he made some money and lost some, mostly lost. Obviously he wasn’t cut out for business, but it was too late when he came to that realization, for he owed so much money the business folded. He tried several lines of work before settling on this one.
“As Chairman Mao said, those who aren’t content with their lot will suffer. It would have been wonderful to keep digging up old bones for exhibitions and telling visitors that thousand-year-old skeletons are really more than ten thousand. But instead of that, I’m digging up info about the living. I’ve returned to the present antiquity.”
Touched by the statement, Yan was about to say so when Xing checked his watch.
“So, what exactly do you want me to look into?”
Xing was back on the matter at hand before Yan could recover from his sentimental reaction. Yan felt as if he were struggling in the water while Xing had already made it back to shore. He knew that Xing was more rational than he, and he was having trouble regaining his composure.
“I’m not looking for a third party in an affair. I want to find a thief.”
Xing gave his reply some thought.
“It must be a special thief if you come to me, not to the police.”
“It’s a small-time burglar, but what he took was no small matter. It was my wife’s purse.”
Xing waited patiently for Yan to provide more information.
“There wasn’t much money in the purse, and the other stuff isn’t all that important, except for a USB drive with all the documents from my company, mostly critical business secrets. I didn’t want to call the police for fear of alerting my competitors.”
Xing nodded and asked, “Did you have a look at the thief?”
“No, but she did. She said he has a dark mole on the left side of his face, in the shape of an apricot flower. Oh, and he left behind an order form from a delivery service. The box had the name of his restaurant.” Yan paused—PI like—and thought before continuing. “Of course, he wouldn’t be working at the restaurant now.”
Xing nodded his agreement as he opened his briefcase to retrieve a stack of documents.
“I’ll take your case. Now we need to talk about fees.”
Yan laid his hand on the document.
“This is quite urgent and I’d like to have it back within five days. Longer than that, it would be hard to find, especially if the thief threw it away and someone else found it. So I’ll make you a deal. I’ll pay you two hundred thousand if you find it in two days, a hundred and fifty thousand if it takes three, and a hundred thousand for five.”
Yan had thought that Xing would be surprised by the offer, or at least he’d cover his mouth and snigger, but Xing responded deadpan:
“Don’t think of that as an exceptional offer, Mr. Yan. That’s pretty much my fee scale anyway.”
Yan was visibly shaken.
20
Liu Yuejin
Liu Yuejin slept on the curb till noon, when the stifling heat roused him.
A tall building provided some cool shade in the early morning, but the area turned into a kitchen steamer by noon as the position of the sun shifted. He woke up to find himself drenched, as if he’d just been fished out of water. Then he spotted white sweat stains on his T-shirt and pants. Completely in the dark as to where he was, he finally recalled what had happened the night before. He had gotten drunk, that was all. His head spun when he tried to sit up, so he lay back down.
A sudden thirst reminded him that he hadn’t drunk alone, so he reached out to find Zhao Xiaojun. Zhao’s spot was empty, replaced by a pile of stomach contents that had dried in the sun into the shape of a snake, an abbreviated snake, since part of it seemed to have been gnawed away by a dog. It was hard to say whose stomach it had come from, his or Zhao’s.
Then he remembered that they had fallen into a drunken stupor at Ordos Restaurant, one on the floor, the other at the table, so how had he ended up at the curb? The people at the restaurant, he concluded. They must hav
e tossed him and Zhao onto the curb during their morning cleanup. Those Mongolians are a bunch of rats, he said to himself, when he was hit by another question: How come he was the only one left? Obviously, Zhao woke up first and just up and left without a thought for Liu. That Zhao Xiaojun is a rat too. They’d gotten drunk together, but he’d split after sobering up. The injustice hit Liu when he realized that he’d gotten drunk on account of Zhao, not for himself.
Finally everything came back to him: yesterday his son and his girlfriend had come to Beijing to see him. He’d gotten seriously drunk and slept on the curb till noon, while they remained at his place. After he’d been away the whole morning, his no-good son would probably claim he’d done it on purpose. What he’d gone through over the past few days came to mind; he’d lost a pack and found a purse in return. The purse had nothing, while his pack contained sixty thousand yuan, and he began to rue how he’d been delayed in his search by other people’s affairs before his own problem was solved.
As his thoughts returned to the “compensation” he’d had to pay the chicken neck vendor for touching his wife, Liu blamed it all on alcohol. With his mind clear, he went into a minor panic and, despite the dizziness, jumped to his feet. He bought a bottle of water at a roadside shop and staggered back to the construction side, sipping water along the way.
He was in for a shock when he got back to the dining hall and opened the door: his room was deserted and a shambles. The blanket was tossed into a bundle, the desk drawer had been pulled out, and a trunk was open, a sign that the clothes inside had been rummaged over. Every lid on the vat and bottles on the floor was off and lying on the floor. Confused and still under the influence of alcohol, he turned round and round, keeping from falling by bracing with his hands before spotting a piece of paper on the table. Originally used to wrap roast chicken, it now served as a note with a few crooked lines:
“We’re going back. You don’t have money, you lied to me. I took some travel money—the thousand or so yuan you hid behind the poster calendar—and the purse. You have no use for it and Dangna needed one. After I get home, I’ll work hard, make some serious money, and when I have enough, I’ll support you in your old age.
