Dragon Day (17 page)

I find her on my messages and press
call
.

A burst of music, some Mandopop.
“Duibuqi, nin bodade yonghu zanshi wufa jietong, qing shaohou zai bo.”
Sorry, the subscriber you dialed is busy. Please try again later.

I disconnect.

I decide to write a text. Something simple.

i read some of your blog. i enjoyed it a lot. i'd like to talk to you about it.

And I hit
send
.

After that I change into my sleeping T-shirt and sweats. Toss my party clothes into the hamper. I am so done with all this shit. I pad around the living room, beer in hand, thinking if I get arrested or deported, at least I won't have to look for a new apartment. Because I'm going to
have
to get a new place. No way around it.

I guess it won't be so bad. Hardly anything here is mine. Most of the furniture came with the apartment. I've got some kitchen stuff, a computer, a TV, a few pieces of art. I could move to a smaller place, easy. I don't really need this much room. There's my mom to think about it, but truth be told, she's practically living with Andy as it is. I'm tempted to ask her how this squares with the whole Christian thing, but she told me once she has a weakness when it comes to men, and I guess if Christ forgives us our sins, hers are pretty small in the scheme of things. Hey, I remember when I was going through my Christian phase, I wasn't exactly chaste.

For all the bullshit we've been through, she's a good person. I know that. And the crazy thing is, she's happier than I'll probably ever be.

Sometimes you just have to go for it.

I'd go for it if I had a clue what “it” even was.

I can't fall asleep.

I keep hearing things, sounds out in the hall, random creaks, and I think I should've gotten Mimi from Mom and Andy. She'd keep watch for me. Because no matter what John says, no matter who he has staking out my place, Uncle Yang's budget for hit men is probably bigger. As is Tiantian's. Or Gugu's. And let's not forget Meimei and crazy Dao Ming.

The wind's howling, too. Coming from the north, and they say the dust will come with it.

I lie in bed and wonder how can I suggest to my mom that she just move in with Andy already. It has to be safer for her with him than living here with me.

Even if she'd be just across the hall.

Maybe I can talk them into a vacation. Preferably out of the country.

I'm finally drifting off when I hear the chime of an incoming text. I fumble around for my phone.

Celine.

My pulse picks up. I get that feeling again: I'm on the track of something. Weird thing is, I'm starting to like it.

glad you enjoy my blog. sure, we can talk about it.

great,
I type.
when?

now?

okay,
I type.
i'll call you
.

better to talk in person.

This does not strike me as a great idea.

it's pretty late,
I type.
how about tomorrow?

i'm busy tomorrow. come to my apartment tonight. i'm in caochangdi, you know caochangdi?

Caochangdi is a Beijing suburb just northeast of 798 Arts District, a little village that used to be a commune and turned into an art center all its own, thanks to Ai Weiwei building a bunch of studio spaces there. It hasn't gone completely upscale the way 798 has, so there are some actual working artists there, galleries, too.

sure,
I type.
i know it.

so come.

it will take a while,
I type.
maybe we should just talk on the phone.

i don't want to talk about this on the phone.

about what?

about the party. about what happened.

I don't reply. I just stand there staring at the screen of my iPhone.

you want to know about it, right?

okay,
I finally type.
send me your address.

Here's the thing.

I may be a fuckup, but I'm not totally stupid.

I never actually talked to Celine. She, or whoever was texting, didn't answer the phone and then wouldn't talk to me. Who knows if it was actually Celine at all, or if this is even her address? I'm just supposed to hop into a taxi and run over there after midnight?

I don't think so.

But I do want to know.

I'll go tomorrow, I decide, in the daytime. Do some recon before I go all knock-ops on her door.

If it was her, and she wants to talk to me, she'll talk to me. If it was somebody else? They won't be expecting me. Or maybe they'll be gone.

I'm out in the kitchen at 7:00
a.m.
, which for me in recent years might as well be oh dark thirty. With all the dust in the air right now, it's still darker than it should be.

I'm sucking down some coffee when the doorknob rattles. I hear Mimi's whine, so it's probably Mom and not one of Uncle Yang's hit men.

I wander out to the living room with my coffee as Mom and Mimi come through the door.

“Oh, hi! I was just
. . .
walking Mimi.” She's a little red-faced. Like I care that she's semi–shacking up with Andy.

“Thanks.”

Mimi's dancing around, ready for breakfast. She dashes over to me, stands up on her back paws, and braces her front legs on my pelvis, runs back to my mom. One of us is bound to feed her.

“So windy out today,” Mom says.

“Yeah. Supposed to be a dust storm coming.”

“Well, good thing we got our walk in already, right girl?” Mom ruffles the scruff around Mimi's neck. “You're up early,” she says to me.

“I have a . . . a meeting. To look at some art.”

I go back to the kitchen to heat up my coffee and give the dog some food. Also to avoid my mom. Because I have to say something, right? Let her know there might be some bad guys out there with me in their sights and that she's better off being out of range.

But where would I start? And do I want to deal with the resulting freak-out?

“So what are you guys up to today?” I ask.

“Well, we're going to visit a few more potential locations for the restaurant.” She grabs a mug and pours herself a little coffee. “One of them's near Workers Stadium. The other's by Dongsi Shitiao.”

“Oh, cool,” I say. “Because
. . .
there's maybe going to be some work going on in the apartment today. So I was hoping you could take Mimi and
. . .
not be around. Because, you know
. . .
workers don't like dogs.”

Her forehead wrinkles. She takes a sip of coffee and gives me a sideways look. “If you're going to have workers in and out of here, wouldn't it be better if I kept an eye on things?”

Well, okay, that was not one of my better lies. But it's way too early, and I'm only on my first cup of coffee.

“Normally, yeah.” I take a big gulp from that cup, scalding my throat in the process.

“Okay,” I say when I've stopped coughing. “Here's the thing. I need for you and Mimi and Andy to not be around the apartment today. There's this kind of
. . .
weird situation I'm involved in, and
. . .
it's just really better if you're not here.”

My mom rocks her head back a little. “Oh. Sure. I understand if you need your place to yourself.”

She gets this sly smile on her face. “Are you still seeing John?”

Oh,
so
not that!
I want to scream.

Instead I say, “Yeah. Kind of.”

Not good enough
, I tell myself, over and over, hugging a pole on the subway out to Caochangdi. Yeah, I might've kept her and Andy and Mimi out of my apartment for a day or so, but is that really going to protect them from Uncle Yang or the Caos?

I've got to tell her the truth, or some version of it anyway.

I will, I tell myself. I will. Just as soon as I deal with Celine.

I make it to Caochangdi around 8:30
a.m.

I figure a party girl like Celine probably doesn't get out of the house too early. I sure had a hard time getting here. For one thing, the subway only gets you as far as Liangmaqiao, and from there it's a bus or a taxi. I opt for the taxi. Easy enough to find at the subway stop. The way back I might not be so lucky.

Finding anything in Caochangdi is kind of a hassle. Most of the streets don't have names. The address I have is just “Focus Space,
草场地村
, 468-3
，艺术区内
, C
区内
.” Which is basically “No street name, just a number, Inner Arts District, C Section, Caochangdi.” I've never heard of Focus Space, but that's not saying much; things are changing fast in Caochangdi like they
are nearly everyplace else in Beijing, with all kinds of construction and new galleries popping up everywhere, plus a sudden increase of Audis and Beemers parked in front of them. I do know, sort of, where the
Inner Arts District
is, which is more than the taxi driver did. So I had him drop me off at a gallery complex I've been to before. Someone will know where this place is. I hope.

The gallery's not open yet, but the little coffee shop/bar attached to it is. White walls and concrete floors like the gallery, decorated with posters from various exhibitions they've put on. I could use another cup of coffee anyway. I order an Americano from the girl with the spiky, blue-streaked hair behind the counter, and then I show her the text from Celine.

“Do you know where this is?”

She studies it and nods.

The wind is still howling, and the air is so thick with yellow dust that I hardly cast a shadow. I feel the sand hitting my face, and my teeth are crunching grit. I take out a bandanna and tie it around the lower half of my face, bandit style, like I used to do in the Sandbox. I'm jumpy like I was back then, too. Outside the wire you never knew what was going to happen. Of course,
inside
the wire plenty of bad shit happened, too, like my getting blown up, for example.

Focus, McEnroe, I tell myself. Don't get lost in those times. Don't start seeing stuff that isn't there. Focus on the here and now, because you don't know what you're walking into.

Supposedly the place is about fifteen minutes away on foot:
You just go down this big road, then at the second cross street you turn right.
Here's hoping.

I've reached the second cross street, so I hang a right. A small road, narrow, not paved. A cluster of shops, mostly two stories, cement and white tile, clusters of wires droopily strung from one side of the street to the other, the wind making them swing and snap. Art supplies, a couple hole-in-the-wall restaurants, cell phones, groceries. A bike-repair shop. Not a lot of people out, but who would want to be out here right now, swallowing dirt? A stray dog trots down the street, tail low, finally taking shelter in a doorway.

I keep walking. The sky looks like something out of a science-fiction movie, all yellow, an alien planet. A plastic bag floats by like an airborne jellyfish, a paper cup tumbles into the road. The businesses thin out. I pass a newer-looking redbrick complex, stark squares and skinny windows, obviously some kind of art space. But not the one I'm looking for.

New apartments. Half built, only ten stories, not the kind of crazy high-rises you see everywhere in China, with a design that mirrors the art space.

Funny. This isn't where I would've pictured Celine living, in an art village like Caochangdi. Sure, it's pretty hip, and I get the feeling she's into that, but not in the center of things for Beijing, hard to get to, and hard to get out of if you don't have a car. Though maybe she does—I mean, I have no idea. I don't know much of anything about her, other than what I read on her blog, and that she hangs out with Gugu and Marsh.

Gugu, whatever else he is, he's got his pretentions, right? Not that he's the upholder of Confucian virtues, like Tiantian fancies himself, but that he's a creative guy. An artist of sorts, even if he says he's only interested in making trashy movies. The kid who Sidney wants to manage his art collection. Maybe Gugu hangs out here, and it's where he met Celine.

Stuff I think I'll ask her about when I see her.

Here's what looks like an old factory or a school: grey wall with thick pillars on either side of the entrance, painted white concrete buildings, faded gold calligraphy announcing whatever it used to be—okay, that says
factory
—and a newer signpost with placards for the various galleries and studios inside it. Some brass, some professionally printed, others deliberately hand done.