by Liu Zhenyun
“It’d be a lot better if some of them died,” Jia concluded.
Yan shivered, as he wondered who Jia was referring to. Why did these people need to die and how would that improve things? Yan again held his tongue. Just as years ago, when he intuited that Jia would be important to him one day, Yan now sensed that sooner or later Jia would abandon him. They could not be friends for life, not in a relationship grounded in money and sex. One day, Jia would turn on him, and when that happened, Yan would have to let it happen, lacking the power to counteract it.
The day finally came, in the wake of a problem-filled year. In late April of the previous year, Jia had attended a meeting in Zhongnanhai and invited Yan out for dinner afterward. He asked Yan how much disposable cash he had.
“A billion or more, I guess,” Yan said after some mental calculations, making sure it was a conservative figure.
Jia told him there would very likely be some adjustments in the national finance policy after the first of May, and suggested that Yan ought to invest his money in the market, either commodity futures or stocks.
“How much can you make building houses?” Jia said, swirling the wine in his glass. “Don’t take the long way around. You have to let your money make more money for you.”
To be sure, Yan wanted to make more money, but not too much. How much was enough? He felt secure profiting from each construction project. Besides, he knew nothing about financial markets and could not say if he was capable of letting his money make money. When he told Jia his concern, Jia said:
“You can always learn. You weren’t born knowing how to build houses, were you?”
Yan had to agree; but even if he disagreed, he had to listen. Owing to the difference in their status, they understood the world differently. Jia had just attended a meeting at Zhongnanhai, the seat of government, after all. So Yan invested the money earned through real estate into commodity futures and stocks, and did very well at first, as predicted. But he began to lose money after six months, not owing to his lack of knowledge about financial markets or his inability to find new ways, but because the government instituted another adjustment in finance policies after the first of October.
Yan was screwed, screwed by the country, for who was better at taking the long way around issues than the government? He tried to tough it out, but a year later he not only lost the one point four billion he’d invested, but he owed banks more than four hundred million. And his failure in the financial markets also affected his real estate business. He’d been making money from real estate, but now he had owed money for materials and wages for workers at over a dozen construction sites for six months. In a little over a year, Yan Ge was transformed from a billionaire to someone in serious debt. He could, of course, refocus on real estate, but he needed money for that. With four hundred million owed, plus six months’ interest, he’d be lucky if the banks didn’t take legal action. They would never give him another loan. His only hope was Jia, who he hoped would speak to the banks on his behalf.
Jia turned on him. At first he gave Yan various excuses, saying he wasn’t in charge of the banks, though he had been able to get them to help Yan in the past. Now that Yan was in serious trouble, why couldn’t Jia do something? They’d shared difficult times together before, but this problem seemed to be Yan’s alone. Wasn’t it Jia who had told him to invest? If only he’d just kept building his houses. It had been two months since Jia last agreed to see him; in the past all Yan had to do was place a call and Jia would be there. Now either Jia would not pick up or the call would go to his secretary. Sometimes, Yan tried Jia’s office director, Lao Lin, who remained cordial and friendly, and who said he would let Director Jia know. But Yan never heard back.
Finally, he realized that Jia had jettisoned him. He’d have had no complaint if it had happened at some other time, but now he was in dire straits and found Jia lacking in moral decency. Putting aside the financial mess Jia caused him, and Yan’s help when Jia’s mother was ill fifteen years before, Jia had reaped tremendous profits by giving Yan building permits over the past twelve years. A rough count of the money going to Jia, a government official, would be enough for him to lose his head several times over. But Yan did not want to sour their relationship, for that would do him no good.
The day after the photo with Yan and the singer appeared in the paper, Lin called Yan and asked to see him. They agreed to meet at a hotpot restaurant.
Although Lin and Yan treated each other with courtesy, deep down Yan did not like the man. Stern and secretive, Lin was inflexible once he made up his mind on something. Money, for instance. Yan had never used Lin as a middleman when delivering money to Jia, since that was their business alone; though Lin feigned ignorance of the arrangement, he went to Yan for loans. While Yan and Jia were old friends, Lin merely worked for Jia. But since he was at Jia’s side all day long, a word from him could work for or against Yan, which was why he always tiptoed around the man.
After lending money to Lin three times, Yan began to give it to him without being asked. He gave Jia much more, but he did that willingly, while he offered Lin less but was forced to. It felt different. It was as if Jia were the Buddha, waiting for believers to come and light incense, while Lin was a dog or a wolf, who would take a bite out of you whenever he felt like it.
Jia thanked him and said, “just this once” when Yan handed over money, whereas Lin didn’t even bother with the nicety, acting as if he was entitled to the money, and one bite was never enough. It was understandable that Jia, a sixty-year-old man nearing retirement, wanted money, even if it was tainted. Lin, on the other hand, was not yet forty, with a long way to go in his career, and if he began seeking bribes at such an early age, when would he stop? Yan wondered what Chinese society would be like when someone from Lin’s generation took over from Jia.
And then there was the way Lin treated women. Yan usually procured women for Jia, some Russian and some Korean, but Lin always wanted to get his hands on them first at the hotel. He would heave a contented sigh afterward, which told Yan that Lin’s submissive attitude toward Jia was fake. Yet Lin was, after all, working for Jia and was someone to reckon with. Yan Ge did not think it would work to his advantage to expose Lin’s scheming to Jia. On his part, Lin was as respectful as ever with Jia, which only intensified Yan’s fears.
Besieged by worries from all sides and a failing business, Yan had yet to find a way to set things right when the photo appeared in the paper, creating another mess. After re-enacting the day in question, he’d thought he had his wife deceived, but he’d overlooked the clock and the time of the encounter, which had made a bad mess worse. Qu Li had had a fit in the car and, after they were back home, had demanded a divorce, which was to be expected.
But then she simply vanished. It was a ruthless tactic, no matter how you looked at it. Although she never let on, everyone knew she suffered from an illness of some sort, and her disappearance would have everyone believing it was Yan’s fault. When a sick woman disappears, she must be found, so Yan put aside a company in disarray and went looking for her. With her cell phone turned off, it was impossible to know where she might be, Beijing or Shanghai, or somewhere else. He contacted everyone he could think of, but still there was no sign of her.
At this juncture, he received the call from Lao Lin, who asked to meet. Since it could be related to his business, he had to forget about looking for his wife and go meet Lin. During lunch, Lin kept his head down as he dipped pieces of meat into the pot and kept Yan in the dark about the purpose of the meeting. Yan knew he had to wait until Lin finished two plates of meat, when, with sweat bathing his forehead, Lin put down his chopsticks and lit up to take a break.
“Busy lately?” Yan probed.
Ignoring his inquiry, Lin took a sheet of newspaper from his bag and spread it out on the table. It was the one with the photo of Yan and the singer. Lin belched when he poked the photo with his chopsticks.
“You’re really something. I hear you had a real-life
re-enactment yesterday.”
The reference had Yan breathe a sigh of relief. He shook his head.
“It didn’t work,” he said. “It only brought me more trouble.”
He recounted his wife’s disappearance. Lin listened with a smile, but then abruptly turned stern:
“The re-enactment was meant to deceive your wife, but what was going on with the real thing? How much did you pay the photographer? Director Jia was very upset when he saw this.”
The comment told Yan that Lin knew everything. He had failed on two accounts. He had staged the re-enactment to mislead, but also to avoid setting off the stick of dynamite that was his wife. As for the photo, it had not been the work of a passing paparazzo; Yan had arranged for it to be taken for one person, Director Jia. Yan’s business was at a crossroads, and yet Jia had refused to help him, so Yan grew resentful. He held out hope that Jia would change his mind when he saw this as a warning.
The pop singer had been with Yan for three years, and it was his money that had made her famous and given her the opportunity to sing the praises of the nation and motherhood. In the spring of the previous year, he had taken her to dinner with Jia. During the conversation, Jia used metaphors and similes, mixed in with his customary bullet points of one, two, three, etc. He was more penetrating and profound than usual, eliciting nods from the singer and indicating to Yan that Jia was interested in the woman. Sex is nothing compared to money and power. Yan secretly pushed the singer toward Jia, and eventually they became involved, though not for long. Jia was first to back out, for, as a seasoned official, he knew that kind of dalliance should not be overdone. On the other hand, he’d had a relationship, no matter how long it lasted.
After failing to see Jia for two months, Yan tricked her out of her apartment to have her picture taken by a man he’d hired. He’d planned to send the photo to Jia as a reminder, only to be betrayed by the photo-taker, who’d sold the picture to a tabloid instead. The photo-taker had nothing against Yan, since he had no idea who his object was until he was on site, when he realized it was the singer, an anorexic eating roasted yams, and saw his chance to make even more money. When the photo appeared in the paper, Yan was caught off guard and, before long, his wife left home. But disaster turned into opportunity for Yan now that Director Jia, having seen the photo also, told Lin to meet with Yan. Hearing that Jia was upset, Yan was not alarmed; in fact, he was happy that the picture had had an effect. You don’t need to pound a drum to get sound out of it. Now that Lin had shown his hand, Yan knew he had to come clean.
“I really didn’t mean for the photo to appear in the paper,” he said, explaining that the photo-taker had betrayed him. “It’s really very simple,” he added. “I could save the day if Director Jia could put in a word for me with the banks and get me a loan of two billion.”
“Are you serious?” Lin laughed coldly. “Do you honestly think a couple of billion is going to make this mess of yours right?”
Lin took off his glasses, wiping the steam off the lenses, and sighed.
“Director Jia did not mean to abandon you. It’s just that he’s had three tough months. Someone has been secretly working against him.”
Yan was surprised, though unsure if he should believe the story; then his better judgment of Lin and Jia told him it was simply an excuse.
“The boat is leaking and you can’t toss me over the side,” Yan said anxiously. “I know where to go if the banks sue me.” He circled his neck with one hand, and continued. “I might not be able to keep this either. If you decide not to help me,” he pointed at the paper, “I’m not going to hold back. If I could get an anorexic to go out and eat yams, I could get her to talk about her relationship with the director.”
“You’re not scaring anyone.” Lin was nonplussed. “She can talk all she wants. At worst, it’ll be just another sex scandal.”
Seeing Lin’s nonreaction, Yan looked angry, though he was faking it to make the next step easier. Snatching up the paper, he tore it into pieces.
“That was just a warning. If you ignore it, don’t blame me if I cut off all means of escape.” Then he took out a USB drive and laid it on the table. “I’ve sorted the contents into categories.”
That got Lin’s attention. “What’s on it?”
“Several conversations. You know what we’ve talked about over these years. Oh, there are a few video recordings, clearly dated to show when I made my offerings to you and Director Jia. There are also clips of the director with Russian girls and Korean girls. By the way, the time stamps show that you did it all with these girls before the director had his share.”
Lin was so stunned his face and neck were perspiring profusely.
“You’re really something.” He stared at Yan. “I didn’t expect you to do this.”
“I didn’t do it.” Yan lit a cigarette. “It was one of my assistants. He was killed in a car accident two months ago, and when I checked his computer I found this. He’d planned to use it to blackmail me, but in the end it will serve me well.”
It was Lin’s turn to wonder whether to believe his story, as Yan continued to marvel over the situation.
“It really is a case of knowing the depth of a chasm but not the scope of the human heart. I was so good to him when he was alive; I told him everything and entrusted him with the most important tasks. Who’d have thought that the one you trust the most often turns out to be a ticking time bomb beside you?” He wasn’t done yet. “But, as they say, everything has its purpose, and we can say the man did not die in vain.”
Lao Lin picked up the USB drive and turned it over in his hand.
“That’s for you,” Yan said. “You can share it with the director. I have another copy with me.”
That was more or less the knife that went in clean and came out red. It was not like Yan Ge, who had no respect for people who did that. Only the fat, petty people pull the clean knife/red knife stratagem. He couldn’t believe he’d actually become just like them. Then he was astounded to see Lin toss the drive into the hotpot, where, wrapped in thinly sliced meat, it bobbed in the boiling broth.
10
Han Shengli
After losing his fanny pack, Liu Yuejin was on the verge of killing himself, for real this time, because his life had depended on the forty-one hundred yuan it held. But that was not the only reason for suicidal thoughts. In the pack were his ID card, his phone contacts, and a double-sided account book for the dining hall, one side detailing the amounts spent, the other side recording the difference between actual costs and his bargain price. Losing these items would not have been the end of the world. The problem was, his divorce decree was also in the pack. It had been six years since the divorce, but he’d kept the paper until its original yellow color turned light brown. Since he carried the pack wherever he went, it got greasy from the extended period of time he spent in a smoky kitchen, and the paper began to turn oily black and got much heavier. Since the divorce was finalized, there was no point in carrying the paper around, especially since it presented an annoying sight, but it was precisely because it annoyed him that he kept it. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, took it out to have a look, and muttered:
“It worked. It really worked.” Or:
“I’m going to have my revenge one of these days.”
It was sort of like the old land reform days, when an aging landlord had a restoration account unearthed in his house, though Liu would not have wanted to kill himself if he’d lost one of those. He knew that revenge was only a pipe dream. The key was the IOU tucked inside the paper, showing the amount owed, sixty thousand yuan. When Huang Xiaoqing, his wife at the time, asked for a divorce six years earlier, Liu had asked Li Gengsheng for that amount as compensation for pain and suffering. Li was agreeable:
“No problem, as long as you agree to sign the paper.”
Liu knew that Li was agreeable not because of Liu but because of Huang, or Huang’s waist. Li added that he had to wait for six years for the money,
so long as Liu left the couple alone during that period. If he caused them any trouble, the agreement would be annulled and Liu would have no money.
“If it works, it works. If not, well, you’re a dickhead,” Li added.
Liu had to do what they asked, on account of sixty thousand yuan, for which Li wrote an IOU, detailing the condition. It wasn’t until later that Liu realized the mistake he’d made regarding the amount. During the custody fight, he’d fought hard to keep their son but had let his emotions get the better of him and turned her down when she offered to send four hundred each month for their son’s support. Li Gengsheng and his son were two separate matters. He accepted the IOU, and it would take him years to realize that money is money no matter where it comes from.
Then there was the difference between an IOU and ready cash; four hundred a month would be just under thirty thousand after six years, which was why the sixty thousand had increasing importance to Liu.
Now it was a month before the six years were up, and he stood there listening to a Henan tune, not bothering anyone, when his pack was snipped off. No pack, no divorce decree; no divorce decree, no IOU. Would the fake-liquor maker give him the money without the IOU? Back when Liu caught Li and his wife in the act, Li was in the wrong and yet he beat Liu up and squatted on a chair, buck naked, smoking a cigarette. Now without the IOU, Liu could easily imagine Li’s reaction:
“You lost what? I’ve never owed you any money.” Or: “Has poverty made you lose your head? Are you trying to cheat me?”
Huang Xiaoqing knew about the IOU, so she could serve as his witness. The problem was, she was no longer his wife and he no longer meant anything to her, so why would she take his side? Over the past six years, Liu had seen her only once. In the previous summer, He had traveled to Henan for the wheat harvest. On his way back to Beijing, he stopped at the Luoyang Train Station, where, after buying his ticket, he squatted in the square to wait for his train. It was hot and he was thirsty, but he couldn’t spare the money for a bottle of water. Instead, he walked up to a nearby hotel, where there was a carwash; he drank his fill at the faucet. An Audi drove up and stopped next to him. Out stepped two people, Li Gengsheng and Huang Xiaoqing, who were likely taking the train somewhere to sell fake liquor. Li didn’t see him. Huang was telling the driver to remember to feed the dog when she turned and spotted Liu with a hose in his hand. Their eyes met. Liu stood up despite himself. Without a word to him, she followed Li into the station.