Dragon Day

by Lisa Brackmann

  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.

  And there’s Focus. I almost miss it because it’s done in these overlapping typefaces that are different colors and seem to make the word shift and blur. Cute.

  I walk in the direction of the sign.

  The path takes me past old concrete and brick buildings, some plastered, some raw. All kinds of flyers and posters pasted up on the walls, layers of them, for exhibits, for bands, for film showings. I pass a life-size wooden tank, with faces and gargoyles and I don’t know what carved into it, along with the block letters VICTORY! in English. A little farther down the path, some giant calligraphy statues that spell out 为什么? “Why?” A couple of people with scarves wrapped around their faces scurry across the grounds, looking for shelter. The wind isn’t getting any better. Dust hits a window with an audible rattle; a tin sign on a wooden stake topples over and scrapes against the pavement.

  Finally a grey brick building with the same graphic as the signpost by the gate—FOCUS—bolted to the wall next to double metal doors. I do a little recon. One small smoked Plexiglas window to the left of the entrance. I don’t see anything useful, just high ceilings and some statue shapes I can barely make out.

  Weird. It looks like a gallery. Celine can’t really live here, can she?

  I don’t see a doorbell or anything like that. I jiggle the door handle. Unlocked.

  Okay, I think. It’s nine fifteen. A little early for a gallery, but not out of the question. Just because it’s the middle of a howling dust storm, that doesn’t mean there’s anything so weird about my being here, right?

  Right.

  My heart’s doing double time as I open the door.

  If the gallery’s open for business, it doesn’t look like it. It’s dark, with just some dim yellow light filtering in through the skylights. Enough for me to make out the shapes I glimpsed from outside.

  Bodies. Limbs and trunks and heads. I let out a gasp, then tell myself to get a grip. They’re too big to be human. They’re doll parts. Giant doll parts that look like Chinese Barbies. Like a rubbery pink Barbie torso that towers over me, then another wearing a sailor blouse and a skirt that ends that just above its swollen pink crotch. There’s a pair of legs, one bent backward at the knee, like my friends and I used to do when we were kids. Arms, hands with painted red nails. Heads. Blank eyed. Cascades of shiny plastic hair: black, blond, and red.

  Why couldn’t it have been fluffy kittens and puppies, you know?

  I pull the bandanna I’m wearing down around my neck. “Ni hao,” I say. My voice cracks a little from all the dust. “You ren zai zheli?”

  Anyone here?

  No one answers.

  To my left there’s an alcove with a desk and a computer, behind it shelves with books and exhibition catalogs. The computer’s off. At the back of the gallery, a doorway, a dark rectangle. Blue light flickers from inside—a TV?

  I hesitate. Listen. Howling wind, things creaking and thumping, the crackle of grit hitting glass.

  None of it’s coming from in here. I don’t think.

  Okay, McEnroe, I tell myself. You have one of two choices: keep looking or turn around and walk away.

  I almost leave. It doesn’t feel like anyone’s here, and the whole thing’s off anyway. This can’t be where Celine lives. The text messages last night, whoever sent them wanted me to come here. But why?

  It’s that question, the “why?” that makes me keep walking. Which is pretty stupid. Because one of the answers I come up with would inspire a sane person to get out, right now.

  I’ll just go look in this next room, I tell myself. That’s as far as I’ll go. I’ll check it out, and then I’ll leave.

  Sometimes I’m really a dumb shit.

  It’s a smaller gallery. Dark because there’s no skylight. A bedroom, I guess, a girlie, Barbie kind of bedroom: pink and red, anime eyes and hearts on the walls, lit by a huge flat-screen TV playing some Chinese soap with the sound turned off. It smells like somebody took a dump somewhere close by.

  Over on the bed, there are more larger-than-life dolls. The first is another Chinese Barbie. She’s lying on her back with her legs spread. There are three others, all men. I guess you could call them Ken. Unlike Barbie, they’re clothed. Two are Chinese Kens. One’s a Westerner. They stand there surrounding the bed, seeming to stare at the doll lying in it.

  My eyes move right, past the bed, past the giant stuffed Hello Kitty.

  Next to the Hello Kitty, propped up against the wall, at first I think it’s another doll.

  Celine.

  Oh, shit.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ★

 
I KEEP IT together. I was a medic, right? So my first reaction isn’t to bug out. I hustle over there and kneel awkwardly next to her.

  Even in the TV light, I can tell she’s dead. Her eyes are open, her mouth slack, her lips cyanotic, and there’s a line of dried white foam running down from one corner. No obvious wounds. Is that white powder around her nose? I put two fingers on the side of her neck to check for a pulse, just in case. The skin’s cold. As lifeless as the Barbies.

  If I were doing this by the book, I’d do a couple other things—get a mirror and make sure there’s no breath moving, check the fingers for the degree of rigor, check for blood pooling—but no fucking way that’s my job right now.

  That’s when I do freak. I scramble to my feet, faster than I knew I could, back out of the room, and then haul ass out of the gallery.

  “Why do you never do what I tell you to do?” Yeah, he’s pissed. What a surprise.

  “Not the time, John.”

  I’m out of the gallery complex and hustling down the street, back toward the center of town and, I hope, a taxi to get me the fuck away from here.

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But I had a scarf around my face because of the dust.”

  “Good for cameras anyway. Cameras don’t work well today. Any inside?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  I hear that sharp exhalation of air that might be a curse.

  My steps are slowing down. I think what’s the point of running? Running where, back to Beijing?

  “Maybe I should just go to the police. I mean, she’s been dead … I don’t know, at least eight, nine hours—it’s not like anyone could say that I went there just now and killed her.”

  “Not a PSB case anymore.”

  “You mean it’s your case? What happens if your boss finds out you’re freelancing? That you’re doing this on your own?”

  “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  Which is bullshit, of course, but I don’t have the energy to fight about it.

  “You talked to Inspector Zou?”

  “Not yet. Today.”

  By now my steps have slowed to a halt. The wind’s whipping around like crazy; a gust tumbles over a trash can, and there are papers and leaves blowing everywhere.

  “What do you want me to do?” I finally ask.

  “Just go home. And stay there.”

  For once I’m inclined to do what he says.

  I have a little bit of luck at least: There’s a taxi dropping somebody off at the gallery complex where I got directions this morning. I have him take me to the Liangmaqiao subway stop—I figure I’ll get home faster on the subway than I would in a taxi going through rush-hour traffic.

  As it is, the subway ride’s long enough to give me plenty of time to think. Too much time. I keep seeing Celine’s face lit by the flickering TV, her open eyes, her slack mouth. Just what I need, another fucking thing like that in my head.

  God, you’re an asshole, I tell myself. I mean, she’s dead and you’re not, so suck it up and drive on. And it’s not like I really knew her, but she was smart, smarter than I realized, and she cared about things, and now she’s paid for it.

  Okay, I don’t know for sure that someone killed her. If I had to guess, I’d guess an overdose of some kind, and who knows? Those texts last night could actually have been from her. She could’ve gotten really wasted and decided that she had to talk to me right now about what she saw at the Caos’ party, because, you know, wasted-people logic where it just couldn’t wait for the morning. In which case it really sucks that I didn’t go out there, because if I had, maybe she wouldn’t have died.

  Maybe she was into something and did a little too much, and it’s just a weird coincidence that she was at a party where a girl died and that she was writing about the lifestyles of the rich and heinous on her blog.

  Yeah. Right.

  By the time I get off the Number 2 subway line at my Gulou stop, I’m sweating, streaking the dust on my face and leaving blotches of mud on my bandanna when I wipe my forehead. First thing I do when I get home, I say to myself as I ride up the escalator, first thing I do is tell my mom. Maybe not everything, but enough to convince her and Andy to get the fuck out of Dodge for a while. No bullshit story about how I need the apartment private for me and my boyfriend, Creepy John. I have to scare them enough so they get out of the kill zone. I don’t know if Andy has a passport or not, but just go to Hong Kong or something—he can go to Hong Kong, right? And Mimi, what do I do with Mimi? Can they take her to Hong Kong?

  As for me … maybe it’s time to call the embassy. Not that they can help much if I actually get arrested for something. Or that they’d necessarily even want to. I don’t know how much of the trouble I caused over Lao Zhang and the Uighur last year stayed between me and my private-contractor friends at GSC and how much of it turned into official US government trouble.

  I guess I could call Carter, my contract-spook frenemy at GSC. GSC gets a lot of outsourced US intelligence work. Or it’s an actual CIA front, for all I know. The distinction is pretty fuzzy these days. Maybe Carter could give me some intel.

  I doubt he’d actually help me much. Last time I tallied things up, I kind of owed him.

  I think about what I might be able to trade. He’s into horse-trading. It’s mostly the only way I can deal with him. I can’t count on hitting him in his tiny guilt complex, not again. Not on something like this.

  It’s your own fucking fault, Doc. I can hear him saying it already.

  Outside, it’s brighter than I was expecting. The wind’s died down, the dust settling onto the sidewalks. I blink a few times and head south on Jiu Gulou Dajie, toward the hutong that leads to my apartment complex.

  Okay, think of a good lie to tell Mom. Or an acceptable version of the truth. Maybe, I’ve got some Chinese gangsters after me. Because … No time to explain. Just get out of town.

  I’ve reached the entrance to my alley. There’s a new black Audi parked there, pretty much blocking the way. The license plate is white instead of blue, with a big red V on it right after the 京 for “Beijing.” Military plates, I think, which means they get to park wherever they like. Half of those plates are counterfeit anyway, and the ones that aren’t, you always see them on Audis and Beemers and even Porsches. Way to “Serve the People,” asshole.

  That’s when I stop in my tracks. New Audi. Military plates. Blocking the entrance to my hutong.

  I turn on my heel and head back up the street, fast as I can without actually running. Maybe they didn’t see me.

  I hear the click of a car door, footsteps hitting the ground, and now I am running, which is crazy, because I can’t run fast. And whoever these guys are, now there’s one on either side of me, and they’re jamming hands under my armpits and grabbing my arms, and one of them says, “Bie zhaoji.” Don’t be nervous.

  Right.

  “Let go of me! Fang wo zou!”

  “Don’t cause trouble. Just come with us,” the one on my left says.

  “Hey!” I yell. “I don’t know these men! Somebody call the police!”

  I say this, and there’s an old, shoulder-hunched auntie staring at us, granite faced. A couple of college kids, who get out their cell phones and start recording. A street sweeper in a Day-Glo vest freezes, broom and dustpan in hand.

  The guy on my right punches me in the face.

  Nobody does anything as the men drag me back toward the Audi.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ★

  TWO GUYS IN front, one guy in back, next to me. I blink, trying to clear the fuzz from my eyes.

  They might be driving an Audi with military plates, but none of the three guys is wearing any kind of uniform. Just slacks and sport coats or bomber jackets. They’re all young, though, with buzzed hair and military vibes.

  The guy next to me opens up my little canvas bag, gets out my iPhone, and powers it off.

  I probe the area around my right cheek and eye an
d temple with my fingertips, wincing.

  “Sorry,” the guy on my right says. “You should have done what we said.”

  “Who are you?” I manage, my voice shaking.

  He doesn’t answer.

  My ears are still ringing, but my head’s cleared some. Enough for me to panic. They could be taking me someplace to kill me, for all I know.

  You can’t lose it, I tell myself. If you’re going to get out of this, you have to keep it together.

  My heart’s pounding in my throat. I think, I’m sitting by the rear door—do I open it? Take my chances? I look out the window, try to get my bearings. We’re on the Second Ring Road. It’s a freeway, sort of, but the traffic’s so bad a lot of the time, that if it slows enough …

  The rear door has to be locked. They wouldn’t have missed something like that. I haven’t ridden around in Audis much. If I pull the handle, will it unlock? Or does it have some kind of child safety lock on it?

  I take a quick glance at the guy to my left. He’s staring at me. He’s lean and cut and looks like he moves fast. I know he hits hard. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to give me a chance to try to find out.

  These aren’t Pompadour Bureaucrat’s people, I don’t think. His crew flashed IDs the two times they picked me up. And the plainclothes team didn’t have nearly this nice a car.

  So someone else. A Cao? Uncle Yang?

  Military plates, I’m guessing Uncle Yang.

  I am in some serious, big-time shit.

  We drive north on the Jingzang Expressway, then west on the Fifth Ring Road. I tell myself they aren’t taking me somewhere to kill me. Using an official car to kidnap me in broad daylight, on one of Beijing’s more heavily touristed streets? It doesn’t seem smart.