Dragon Day (12 page)

Well, okay, this is weird.

The three of us are sitting around the dining-room table snacking on spicy peanuts and shrimp chips. Inspector Zou and I have Yanjing Draft in little glasses, the open bottle and a fresh one on the table. I gave Sergeant Chen a Coke.

“This is
. . .
nice apartment,” Zou says. “Do you like this area in Beijing?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Very convenient.”

Zou nods. “Not so many places like this left, with the
siheyuanr
,
the old kind of houses,” He says it with an “r,” like a proper Beijinger. “When I was a boy, my family live in
siheyuanr
, near Dazhalan. You know it?”

“Sure.” Dazhalan's down by Qianmen, an old neighborhood south of Tiananmen that mostly got
chai
'd for the Olympics, the main street rebuilt into a Disneyfied version of itself, a fancy pedestrian mall that's half empty.

“Very dirty, really,” he says. “Toilet outside house in
hutong
. I don't miss this part.”

Zou pauses for a sip of beer. I refill his glass. He drinks. Puts his glass down with an audible thunk.

“So.” Zou suddenly slaps his hands on the table. “The investigation.” He tilts his head toward Sergeant Chen.
“Chen Jingguan, gei wo zhe zhang zhaopian.”

Sergeant Chen, get me the photograph.

Chen reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a manila folder. Opens it, extracts a glossy piece of paper. Hands it to his boss.

Who lays it on the table in front of me with a small, satisfied smile, like he's flipping over his hole card.

A dead woman.

“This woman, do you know her?” Zou asks.

She's young. Chinese. The shot is a close-up of her face. It's bruised. One eye swollen shut, the other clouded and flecked with dark red specks. Nose broken, shunted to one side, dried blood covering her split lip. Below her jaw, around her throat, more purple bruises.

“No,” I say.

“You are certain?”

I shake my head. “I don't recognize her.”

I want to say more, something like,
It's possible I met her once,
but the way she looks now, how could I tell?
Except I haven't had enough beer to say something that dumb.

“This does not disturb you?” Zou asks.

Oh, I'm supposed to gasp and cry or something? Go all to pieces over a photograph?

Maybe I should feel something, but I really don't.

“I was a medic in the Iraq War. I saw dead people in person. This is just a picture.”

“I see.”

Fuck. Maybe I should've pretended. But I'm not a very good actress.

“If you are a
. . .
medic? Is that a doctor?”

“No. More like
. . .
we're first responders. We help people on the scene, when someone's hurt. Do first aid. Stop the bleeding if we can.” I try to gauge his reactions. I'm not sure if he's understanding me, but one thing I'm pretty sure of: he's not stupid.

“But still you are a medical person. So. How is she dead, then?”

“You mean, what killed her?”

“Yes. In your opinion.”

I look at the photo some more. “I couldn't tell you from a photo. No one could for sure. Not even a doctor. Not unless it was something really obvious. But someone beat her up. Maybe choked her.”

“Choke?”

I put my hands on my own throat for a moment. “This.”

“Ah.”

We fall silent. The photo sits between us on the table, a piece of paper that suddenly feels like it weighs a ton.

“Why are you asking me about her?” I finally say.

Zou crooks his fingers at Chen, who makes a show of shuffling through the manila folder before he gets out another piece of paper and hands it over to his boss.

Zou studies it for a moment, then looks at me. Lays the paper on the table and slides it across.

That's when I realize:
This
is his hole card. Because the Xeroxed image on this piece of paper is a business card.

My
business card.

I feel myself flush and then chill as I break out in a sweat.

“Yeah,” I say. “It's mine.”

Zou eyes me like he's monitoring every twitch, every drop of sweat. “Do you have something else to say now?”

“Yeah. Where'd you get it?”

“You don't know?”

Asshole. I feel a little rush of anger. It almost feels good, that surge of chemicals, and suddenly I can focus again. “Actually? I don't usually ask people questions when I already know the answer.”

“Ah.” Zou allows himself a small grin. He points at the photo of the dead girl. “This card was on her body. In her pocket. So you can see why we want to talk with you.”

I don't feel anything right away. Just blank. Like any thoughts I had just got sucked out of my head.

What I say is, “Makes sense.”

I pick up the photo of the dead girl. Study it again. If I know her, I don't know her well, not well enough to make up for how the swelling and bruises and busted nose have distorted her features.

“I really don't recognize her,” I finally say. “Maybe she's someone I've met, but the way her face looks now, I just can't tell.”

“Then how can she have your card?”

“I don't know. Look, I give my card to a lot of people. At galleries and openings and parties. She could be someone who was interested in an artist I represent. I have no idea.”

I push the photo back toward Zou. “Are you going to tell me who she is?” I ask.

“Ah.” Zou straightens up. Has another sip of beer, like this is a happy social occasion. “You see, this is also why we want to talk to you. We don't know. She has no purse. No
. . .
no
zhengming
.”

No identification.

Nothing but my card.

Now my heart's pounding, and I'm thinking, It's a setup, it has to be, but who—and why?

Marsh. Or maybe Tiantian. Someone at that party.

Okay, McEnroe, slow down, I tell myself. You can't just assume that.

“Can you tell me when she died?” I ask.

“Why you wish to know?”

He's still smiling, but the way he says it isn't friendly. Like I have no business asking and it's suspicious that I'm doing so.

“Because she's dead and my card was in her pocket,” I snap back. “So maybe she got my card not too long before she died. It might help me narrow it down.”

Or she'd stuck it in her jeans or whatever she was wearing, forgot about it, and it was still there when she put them on again.

I push that thought aside.

Zou draws in a deep breath. Crosses his arms over his chest and pats his elbow with an audible slap.

“Sometime last night or early this morning. We still wait for
. . .
the study.” He uncrosses his arms to sip more beer. “Some workers find her out near Sixth Ring Road. In some . . . some trash. This big trash mountain by an old village they
. . .
” His forehead wrinkles. He can't come up with the word. “Very embarrassing,” he mutters. “My English.”

“Your English is very good,” I say automatically.

What I'm thinking is, She died last night or this morning.

Ding, ding, ding—we have a winner.

Meanwhile Zou's tapping something on his phone. A dictionary, I'm guessing. I have one on mine. “Demolish,” he says with emphasis.

But Marsh wasn't the only one at that party who had my card. I'd given one to Gugu and to Meimei and
. . .
did I give one to Tiantian? Yeah, I think I did, right as I was leaving.

All three of the Caos. If I tell Zou that
. . .

What's Sidney going to do if I tell a cop about his kids?

I think some more, back to the night of Gugu's party. I handed them out to that girl, the blogger, to Celine, and to her friend Rhinestone-Cap Girl—Betty.

Could the dead girl be one of them?

I don't think so, but I can't be sure.

“Does this give you any idea?” Zou asks.

A few too many, I'm thinking, but I don't say that.

What I say is this: “I was at a party last night. I don't think I gave my card to anyone there, though.”

It's only a small lie.

Along with a big omission.

“A party. How late you stay?”

“Mmmm, about midnight?”

“And there are people from party to
. . .
to
. . .
” He checks his phone dictionary again. “
Verify
this?”

I shrug. “Sure.” I hope.

“Who?”

Oh, shit. But there's no way around it. If I don't say where I was, Zou's going to have an even bigger hard-on for me.

“The name of the host is Cao Tiantian,” I say. “I can give you the address.”

Lucky me, I don't end up handcuffed in the backseat of a squad car or in some unmarked sedan with a bag over my head. Instead I pour out the rest of the beer, like a good hostess, and Zou finishes his glass. Then he stands. Sergeant Chen rises with him.

“If you can think of something to help us, please call me.” Zou reaches into his little man bag, pulls out a card case, and gets a card. Hands it to me with both hands.

I make a show of examining it. Chinese on one side, English on the other.

Chief Inspector Zou Qiushi.

I wonder if he had these made himself or if this is the Beijing PSB's attempt to be all hip and modern?

“I will,” I tell him. Who knows, I actually might.

I look at the Chinese on the back of the card. I still don't read as much as I speak, but I'm getting better.

“Qiushi—you know the meaning of this name?” Zou asks suddenly.

“I, uh
. . .
” Dumbshit, I say to myself. Way to show you know the language. Well, that and the Chinese dictionaries in the bookcase.

He probably already knew anyway.

“Seek truth, right?” I say.

He beams and nods. “Yes. And you say
qiushi
a different way, can mean ‘jail cell.'” His smile broadens. “I like this name of mine.”

I've just told a
Beijing homicide detective he should check out the people at Tiantian's party. What's going to happen when Sidney finds out? I don't think he's going to be happy.

The idea pops into my head I could just tell Sidney that Marsh is a bad element, and whatever ends up happening because of that . . . well, all I did was tell Sidney, right?

But I can't. Marsh might not have anything to do with it, and I'm not going to have that on my head. Anyway, even if he does, would Marsh's getting whacked by Sidney solve
my
problem? Because even though I haven't been arrested, I can't assume I'm off Zou's suspect list. I'm pretty sure the PSB would love to pin this on a decadent foreigner.

“Fuck,” I mutter, and I go to the fridge and get another beer. I shouldn't, I know I shouldn't—I mean, I'm already a little buzzed, and it's barely lunchtime, and I'm having a hard time thinking this through as it is.

Oh well.

I open up the bedroom door, beer in hand, and Mimi trots out, still on alert, eyes wide open, ears pricked forward.

“They're gone,” I tell her. “Let's go sit on the couch. You can help me figure this out.”

I pour out a little glass of beer and sip, and I think about what makes the most sense for me to do.

Okay, actually? The most sensible thing would be to just hit the
eject button on this country.

To leave China.

Except where would I go? It's not like I can expect a warm welcome in the good US of A.

I sink back against the couch cushions and pat the seat next to me. “Come here, Mimi,” I say.

She clambers up in that stiff-legged way dogs have.

If Marsh
did
do it, I could go to Sidney and suggest that rather than having his rent-a-goons kill him, Sidney use his money and influence to make sure Marsh gets arrested. That could work. It would get
me
out of trouble, right?

But what if Marsh didn't do it? What if this has nothing to do with the Caos at all?