NVK

by Temple Drake

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’d just got off the phone with my pain-in-the-ass boss. He asked how business was going, and I said it was slow. He said it was down to me. He thinks I put people off.”

  “Where was my friend when you saw him?”

  The girl came out from behind the counter and moved over to a glass-topped freezer cabinet. “I was standing here, checking the plug. The connection’s faulty, and the ice creams keep melting. At some point, I looked out of the window. That was when I noticed him.”

  “Where?”

  She pointed. “Over there, by the shop where they cut keys. He was talking to a blonde woman.”

  Zhang stared at the girl. All of a sudden, his heart was beating high up in his throat. “You’re sure?”

  The girl nodded firmly. “It was the woman I saw first. I probably wouldn’t have noticed him otherwise.”

  “And they were talking?”

  “Yes—but it was strange. They didn’t look like people who would know each other. It wasn’t just that she was foreign. It was like they came from two completely different worlds.” She gazed through the window. “The woman was amazing-looking, like a comic-book character or a superhero, and he was just an old man in a suit, you know?”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  The girl screwed up her eyes, thinking. “The way they were talking was strange too. She seemed to be trying to explain something to him, or plead with him, but he wasn’t interested.” She paused. “You’d think it would have been the other way round—him bothering her…”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The phone rang, and I went to answer it. Next time I looked out of the window they were gone, and there were some foreign guys outside with skateboards and beer.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.” At the door, Zhang paused and turned back. “You know something? You’re wasted in this place. You should be a detective.”

  The girl’s face lost all its hardness. “I’d love that,” she said.

  Zhang crossed the road and stared into the darkened window of the key-cutting shop. Mad Dog had been standing here. Right here. He had been talking to a blonde woman, who had been trying to explain something to him. He was only a couple of minutes’ walk from where he lived, and yet he hadn’t made it home.

  A blonde woman…

  He had instantly thought of Naemi, of course. The woman sounded just like her. But it couldn’t be. She was thousands of kilometers away, in London…Fragments of recent conversation circled inside his head. First Naemi: He doesn’t like me, does he. Then Mad Dog: I’d have nothing to do with her. I’d run a mile. Then Naemi again: He should be careful. A taxi came along, but Zhang made no attempt to flag it down. Instead, he watched the taillights sink into the murk, then he crossed the road again and stood where the skateboarders had stood, with his back to the convenience store. Looking towards the key-cutting shop, it wasn’t an old man and a blonde woman he saw. It was Mad Dog and Naemi, and they were involved in some kind of altercation. Another taxi passed. Still he didn’t lift a hand.

  He should be careful.

  At the time, he had taken this remark of hers for solicitude. Now he thought about it, though, it sounded like a threat—and hadn’t Mad Dog talked of threats, the night he appeared unexpectedly in Pudong, the night they saw the owl?

  It was approaching two in the morning, but Zhang felt an urge to complete the journey. He walked away from the crossroads and turned into the narrow alleyway where Mad Dog lived. An old man in a white undershirt and plaid shorts was watering his plants. He looked at Zhang vacantly as he passed by. Zhang stopped outside Mad Dog’s house. The wooden gate was open, and light from the house fell across the yard. He could see the corrugated-plastic lean-to, and the outdoor sink, and the Formica table where they had eaten lunch. On the shelf above the sink was an ashtray full of butts. One of Mad Dog’s shoes stood upright next to a small round cactus in a pale green pot. The light was coming from the kitchen window. Someone was awake. Perhaps, after all, Mad Dog had finally returned. Perhaps he had been on a two-day drinking binge, or perhaps he had been with a woman. Perhaps he and Ling Ling were arguing—though Zhang couldn’t imagine Ling Ling arguing, or even raising her voice. Perhaps she was telling him, in low tones, that she was leaving him, and he was telling her not to be ridiculous. Perhaps he was telling her he loved her. Zhang hoped all this was true.

  He eased through the gate and closed it behind him, then he swiftly and silently crossed the yard. Positioning himself just to one side of the light, he moved his head until he could see into the room. Ling Ling was sitting at the kitchen table, and she had both hands over her face, like a child counting to one hundred while her friends ran off and hid. One look at her, and it was obvious Mad Dog had not come home. Zhang stepped back from the window, darkness closing round his heart.

  * * *

  —

  The night was hot and wet, like a night in July or August, and Zhang was driving. His heart was light as a balloon, and seemed to drift inside his body, as if he was on his way to meet somebody new. His mind was cool and fluent, no thoughts as such, just the low-level fizzle of anticipation. He pulled up outside a club. A valet opened the car door for him and took his keys. Mauve neon spilled across the pavement. The rain was warm.

  He walked past the line of people waiting. In the foyer, a girl stamped the inside of his wrist with the symbol of a fingerprint, which glowed in the ultraviolet. He passed through the crowd and on into the bar area. Everybody in the place was beautiful. Crossing the dance floor, he could feel the bass notes pushing against the soles of his shoes. Faces spun past, seemingly hurled at him and glancing off.

  Then he was in a corridor, the music behind him now, and muffled. He was looking for someone. He wasn’t sure who. His heart felt heavier, hemmed in. He found it hard to catch his breath. He stepped sideways, through a half-open door. There were six or seven young people in the room. The girls all wore short skirts. One of them had dyed blue hair—or perhaps it was a wig. The men had taken off their shirts. They had gold chains round their necks. Their jeans were black.

  One of the girls bent over a glass table and snorted white powder through a straw. Straightening up again, she pushed her hair back and pinched her nose, then she handed him the straw and reached for a microphone. On the screen behind her was a blown-up photographic image of green foliage and dappled sunlight. She began to sing. She had chosen a heavy metal track about lust and killing. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder. One of the men. The tattoo of a rope coiled around his upper body, encircling his neck. He jerked his head towards the white lines on the table. Zhang bent down and snorted. His nostril burned. He gave the straw to the man with the rope tattoo and left the room.

  At the end of the corridor was a black door, and the light that oozed around its edges was a fuzzy gold. He was soaring inside his head, all the giddiness and claustrophobia gone. Someone took his arm. It was the girl who had been singing. Blood trickled from her nose, but she was smiling. Her black T-shirt was tight over her breasts. You were good, he told her. I never expected you to be so good. She tilted her face towards his, offering her lips. They kissed. She opened the black door and started up the stairs. He followed. There was no effort involved. He could have climbed those stairs forever. Time seemed to have unraveled. Space too. The idea that there might be another world outside the club seemed far-fetched, unbelievable. Even the night drive through the city. Even his car keys glinting in the valet’s hand…

  It was dark in the room, and there was a steady roar, like air conditioning. The girl told him this was the Golden Lounge. The small man in the pale blue suit was sitting at a table in the corner with a drink. There you are, Zhang said. He felt excited. Everything made sense. The man said nothing, though. He was studying his fingernails. Zhang wanted to know where the little suitcase was. Lifting his eye
s, the man slowly shook his head. He seemed disappointed, and disdainful, but also resigned. When you think of all the questions you could have asked, he said.

  Zhang looked upwards. There was no ceiling, only a brown night sky. Rain splashed down into the room. He watched the drops sink into the carpet, one after another. The small man and the girl were gone—

  He woke up covered with sweat, a damp sheet tangled round his body. When you think of all the questions you could have asked…He switched on the bedside light and looked at the soles of his feet. No little marks or holes. No sensitivity. He drank some water from the glass next to his bed, then reached for his phone. It was ten to five. Switching off the light again, he lay down and closed his eyes. Moments later, seemingly, his alarm went off. Leaving his bed, he walked into the kitchen and made a pot of yellow leaf tea.

  * * *

  —

  He had been trying to speak to his sister for several days, but she wasn’t answering the phone. She didn’t return his calls either. That afternoon, he told Chun Tao to drive him to Huaihai Road, where Qi Jing worked. The city was sunk in a dirty white fog, like a moth wrapped in a cocoon. All the cars had their headlights on, even though dusk was still an hour away.

  When the Jaguar pulled up outside Qi Jing’s high-fashion clothes shop, she was in the window, adjusting the leather jacket on a shop dummy. He crossed the pavement and pushed the door open. Though he was sure she had seen him approaching, she didn’t look round.

  “You’ve been ignoring my calls,” he said.

  She stepped out of the window and onto the shop floor. “What were you calling about?” She seemed cold, indifferent. Her face looked stiff.

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m doing fine.”

  Qi Jing’s assistant appeared from a back room with a number of silk scarves. Qi Jing asked her to leave them on the counter and take a half-hour break. She needed some time alone with her brother, she said.

  When the young woman had left the shop, Qi Jing turned the sign on the door so it would read CLOSED to anyone who might be standing on the pavement, then she swung round.

  “Was it your idea to set me up with Laser?”

  He shook his head. Sometimes she was more perceptive than he gave her credit for. “Why?” he said. “Didn’t you like him?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “In the text you sent me you seemed to like him. You said he was cute.”

  “You set me up. You manipulated me.”

  “I had no idea you’d sleep with him. All I did was ask you to come out for a drink.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He shrugged, then began to look through the dresses hanging on a clothes rail by the wall. He might find a gift for Naemi.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  He looked round.

  Qi Jing was standing in the middle of the shop, her feet apart, her left hand on her hip with the thumb pointing forwards. This was something she did when she was in a rage. The hand on the hip. The thumb. She had done it even as a child.

  “How dare you fuck with my life?”

  Her fury was intense and colorless, like the sun concentrated into a small hot circle on a piece of paper by a magnifying glass.

  “You not only set me up with your drummer,” she went on. “You also sabotaged my relationship with Chu En Li.”

  Zhang affected a blank look.

  “You had him sent to the Philippines, didn’t you.” She came and stood in front of him, her flushed face close to his. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  Oddly enough—and even though Qi Jing’s accusations were wholly justified—her anger sparked a corresponding anger in him. “I’ve got more important things to think about,” he said, “than some affair you were having that didn’t work out.”

  “Oh really?” Her tone was withering. “Like what?”

  “A friend of mine’s gone missing.” He saw something shift in her. He had caught her off guard. “You met him the other night, in the bar.”

  “The old man, you mean?”

  He nodded. “No one’s seen him in three days.”

  “I’m sorry.” She looked at the floor, then lifted her eyes to him again. “But that doesn’t change how I feel.”

  He moved to the door of the shop and peered out. The fog still hadn’t lifted. He could see his Jaguar parked on the street, Chun Tao with his earbuds in, listening to music.

  “I know it was you,” Qi Jing was saying. “Chu En Li told me. You’re friends with his boss, apparently. He saw you together.”

  In the noodle place, Zhang thought. In Yangpu district.

  He turned to face his sister again. Some of her fury had burned off, leaving a residue of bitterness or scorn. “Chu En Li,” he said. “Was he the one you were with in that bar on the Bund?”

  “What do you think?”

  “The way he behaved that night.” He let out a laugh that was dismissive, contemptuous. “He seemed to think he was some kind of gangster.”

  “Maybe you should be worried then.”

  He stared at his sister. “Why should I be worried?”

  She gave him a look that was provocative, almost flirtatious, then she pushed past him and opened the door.

  “I’d like you to go now,” she said.

  “What have I got to be worried about?”

  “Just go.”

  He sighed and shook his head and then he left.

  * * *

  —

  That evening, on his way back from a dinner with Sebastian, Zhang called Johnny Yu.

  “How’s the head?” he asked.

  “I went to the hospital,” Johnny said. “Five stitches.”

  “And the apartment?”

  “I had to buy a new kitchen door, and new glass for one of the windows. She broke a lamp. The TV too. All in all, it cost me close to 15,000 RMB.”

  “Expensive argument.”

  “She’s fiery, but you know…” Johnny paused. “It has its advantages.”

  “There’s something I need you to do,” Zhang said.

  “What is it this time?” Johnny said. “Something else that’s beneath me?”

  Zhang smiled. “Can you meet me at the Dark Horse tomorrow afternoon?”

  “I could meet you now, if you like.”

  “No,” Zhang said. “It’s been a long day. I need to get to bed.”

  “Who are the companions sitting alone at the bright window? / I and my shadow—the two of us.” Johnny paused again. “Hsiang Kao. A minor writer, of whose life nothing is known.”

  “Good night, Johnny.”

  For once, the lines Johnny had quoted had spoken to him directly. It was Golden Week, and he could have been in London with Naemi, but she had told him she was busy, so here he was in Shanghai, on his own…He called his wife’s number. She didn’t answer. He called his son, Hai Long, but he didn’t pick up either. It was late, and they were probably asleep. Or perhaps they had gone away, like everybody else.

  Up ahead, he could see the mouth of the Dalian Road Tunnel.

  He leaned his head against the headrest. White lights slid up the windscreen, then a metal grille clanged twice beneath the wheels, and they emerged into the wide, empty avenues of Pudong.

  * * *

  —

  The following afternoon, Zhang arrived at the Dark Horse five minutes early. He ordered a beer and sat at a table by the wall. The two young women who ran the bar were playing pool, but they weren’t taking the game seriously, potting balls out of turn and putting each other off. It was just a way of killing time until the place filled up.

  While he was waiting for Johnny, he rang Ling Ling and asked if Mad Dog had appeared yet. She said he hadn’t. It was quiet behind her voice.
Though he knew where she lived, and what the inside of the house looked like, he saw her in isolation, against a blank blue screen, like an actor shooting a scene with CGI.

  “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” he said. “He always does.”

  It was several seconds before Ling Ling spoke, a silence that was filled by the click of pool balls and the laughter of the girls.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever see him again,” she said at last.

  He told her about the call he had put in to the deputy commissioner. She simply absorbed the information. Nothing came back. He didn’t mention his attempt to follow in Mad Dog’s footsteps, or his encounter with the tattooed girl in Quik. Perhaps he felt incapable of altering Ling Ling’s state of mind—or perhaps he was finding it difficult to work out what significance any of it had. The fact was, no one had seen Mad Dog in almost four days.

  “Let me know if you hear something,” he said. “Call me any time of day or night.”

  She hung up.

  I don’t think I’ll ever see him again.

  He could no longer imagine what Mad Dog might be doing. Every time he thought of Mad Dog, he saw the same thing: the old man walking away, the back of his hand showing above his shoulder, youngsters dancing in couples under huge, dark trees—

  The door opened, and Johnny appeared, his suit dark blue, his shirt a muddy brown. His porkpie hat perched on top of a bandage that covered his five stitches. He signaled for a beer, then pulled out a chair, sat down, and lit a cigarette.

  “We wish to keep our youth, and wait for wealth and honor / But wealth and honor do not come, and youth departs.”

  “I recognize that,” Zhang said.

  “Maybe I quoted it before.” Johnny tapped a few flakes of ash into the ashtray. “Po Chu-I. A T’ang poet. Very popular.”

  “Why so gloomy?”

  Johnny shrugged. “The girlfriend.”

  “More arguments?”

  Johnny’s beer arrived. He drank, then put the bottle down. “You know what she said to my uncle recently? ‘He makes me angry. Every day, he makes me angry.’ ”