Hour of the Rat (31 page)

Or maybe … I don’t know, after everything that’s happened, I’m finally feeling like I can afford to relax. Like right now I’m kind of safe.

That’s when adrenaline rushes through me like an electric shock.

Safe? With Creepy John? What am I smoking?

I look out the window, try to get my bearings. We’ve been driving north, away from Dali. Now we’re heading east, around the north end of Erhai Lake.
Erhai
means “Ear Sea,” I think, because the lake is kind of shaped like an ear, and it’s a big freaking lake. We’re heading around the top of it. The road is dirt now, rutted, and there are wind turbines up on the hillside, and I can’t tell how much of the bumping is from the road and how much is from the gusts of wind.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Some place quiet,” he mutters, hands gripping the steering wheel.

“Why?”

“So you can rest. So I can … so I can decide what to do.”

My heart thumps hard in my chest. “What do you mean, ‘decide what to do’?”

He winces now, scrunches up his face like he’s in pain. “Just … just how I can fix things.”

Okay, I think, okay. He’s not going to hurt me. He’s not. He saved my ass before. He took my dog to a doctor and bought it lunch.

It’s not your dog, I remind myself.

And when it comes down to it, I have no idea what John really wants.

A
S WE CURVE AROUND
the top of the lake and head south, the road smooths out again. Beams of light stream through breaks in the cloud like some giant flashlight, the peaks of the little waves on the lake sparkling where they hit. There are rusting boats now and again tied up at rotting wooden posts. We blow by some Westerners on bikes struggling against the wind.

“So you really don’t know where Zhang Jianli is,” John finally says.

“No. I really don’t.” I summon up the energy to get pissed off. “I thought you were supposed to be his friend.”

“I …” He looks ashamed, and maybe he actually is. “I just have to tell them
something
. They think
you
know. And I don’t want …” His voice trails off. He stares straight ahead.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to have trouble, that’s all.”

He turns to look at me, which I wish he wouldn’t do, given the cyclists and farm trucks and motorcycle carts on the road. “Just tell me what you are doing. Then I can say it has nothing to do with Lao Zhang and they will leave you alone.”

“It’s personal. Meaning it’s none of their fucking business.”

Or yours
, I want to say, but I don’t.

W
E PULL IN TO
this village by the side of the lake. Traditional buildings in white and grey, trimmed with wood, that look like they’ve been fixed up. A finger of land that juts out into the lake and a tiny island.

Yeah, pretty fucking quaint.

“We can stay here for a while,” John says.

I shrug. Whatever. “Okay.”

A
T THE EDGE OF
town, there’s a couple of crazy modern buildings, all hard angles and glass. Artists’ homes, I’m guessing. We end up at one of them, which turns out to be another boutique hotel.

The room the receptionist points us to looks out over the lake. Glass, slate, and wood. A king-size bed. Hand-woven carpets. Contemporary paintings on the walls, splashes of red against white and grey. I’m still no expert, but they go with the room, I guess.

John and I stand there in the center of the room. The dog settles down by my side. I’m surprised they’re letting the dog stay here. But maybe John showed them his badge or something.

“So what now?” I finally ask.

“You can have a shower and a rest if you want.”

“You?”

His eyes don’t meet mine. “Just got to take care of some things. I come back later.”

He looks at me for a second, gives an awkward little wave and leaves, shutting the door gently behind him.

“Well, shit, dog, what do you make of that?”

The dog yawns.

“Yeah, he’s kind of a freak, huh?” I lean over and give her a scratch behind the ears. I’m not sure what to do.

I could take off, I guess. See how far I could get. But it feels kind of pointless. He’ll just find me again.

I guess I could take that shower.

I
STAND UNDER THE
water for a long time. It’s a nice bathroom, grey slate floors like the rest of the room, copper-clad
sink, a shower with stone-studded walls, which have to be a bitch to clean but look very cool. I let the water pound my neck and shoulders for a while.

When I come out, I don’t really want to put my sweaty T-shirt and grimy jeans back on. There’s a white terry-cloth bathrobe hanging on a hook by the door. I put that on instead.

The dog’s sound asleep on the carpet by the bed. I limp past her, to the wall of windows overlooking the lake.

There’s nothing but a narrow stone walkway separating the window from the shore. Clouds have turned the water practically the color of the slate floor, with ridges of white where the wind has kicked up tiny waves, like frosting.

As I stand there, a big white bird flaps down and lands on the walkway, almost in slow motion. It takes a few steps, lifting its legs and putting them down with a weird sort of hesitant precision. Like it’s testing the ground ahead. It looks like Boba. I wonder if it’s the same kind of bird. A crane, or whatever.

Fuck, I’m tired.

I pull back the comforter on the bed and slide under the sheet. I swear, the mattress feels like a cloud.

I
WAKE UP WITH
a jolt. The dog, barking. It’s dark but there’s a light on. Someone standing in the room.

“It’s just me,” John says.

I let out a held breath and sit up. “It’s okay, dog,” I say. I reach out and find the scruff of the dog’s neck; she’s standing guard next to the bed.

John’s dark against the entry light. I can’t see his face. He’s got a duffel bag slung over each shoulder, a sack in his hand.

I switch on the lamp on the nightstand. “What time is it?”

“Just after seven.”

I smell food.

“Some dinner,” he says.

One of the bags he’s carrying is my duffel—olive canvas, from my deployment. His is black. He drops them on the luggage rack by the wardrobe.

“You picked up my stuff?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Are you hungry?”

I nod. “A little.”

He stares at me for a moment, and I remember that I’m not wearing anything except the hotel bathrobe. “I … uh, give me a minute to change.”

I find the baggy drawstring pants I’ve been using for pajamas and a cleanish T-shirt, the one from the Mati Village coffeehouse I used to like, with Lei Feng holding a steaming mug of coffee. I change in the bathroom. The pressure bandage I’ve had wrapped around my leg lies on the floor in the corner. It reminds me of a shed snakeskin, like I used to see sometimes when I was a kid and I’d ride my bike out in the desert. I pick the bandage up, but I don’t try to put it back on. My leg feels a lot better, I tell myself. Instead I roll it up neatly as I can and put it on the shelf where the towels are stacked.

When I come out of the bathroom, John has the food laid out on the little table pressed up against the window overlooking the lake. Dumplings and some green vegetables. Vinegar peanuts. And a couple bottles of Dali Beer.

“Looks great,” I say.

“I have this for the dog,” John says. He holds up a bag of Iams kibble and a leash and collar.

“That’s really nice of you.” I don’t know what else to say.

H
E RIPS OPEN THE
dog food and pours some onto the empty sack that had carried our dinner. The dog digs in, seeming to like this better than the ethereal-flavor beef, or maybe she’s just feeling better than she was. “She probably needs some water,” I say. John frowns. It’s like he’d thought of everything but he hadn’t thought of that, and it bugs him.

Finally he grabs one of the hotel teacups and fills it with water. “Not so good,” he says. “I find something better later.”

After that we both sit down at the little table.

I eat a couple dumplings. Drink some beer.

“So the … the thing in Dali,” I say.

John shrugs. “I take care of it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I tell the PSB they make a mistake. That you have nothing to do with these guys.”

“Oh, yeah? So it’s over? I don’t have anything to worry about? Or are you gonna keep this in one of your files, just in case you need me to do something? Help you find Lao Zhang, maybe? Or fuck over some other artist who says things you don’t like?”

A muscle in John’s cheek twitches.

“This problem you have in Dali is just a local thing,” he says. He sounds calm. Cold, almost. “It did not go any further than here. And it is gone now. You want to go back to Dali, to Lijiang, to anyplace around here, you can. The local PSB understands now you are a friend to China. You won’t have any troubles.”

I really don’t know what to say to that. I drink my beer. John pours me more and then refills his own glass. Downs it and opens another bottle.

“Why are you doing all this?” I finally ask.

He puts the bottle down. “Because we are friends.”

The way he looks at me—steady, serious, not putting on one of his confused, clueless acts—I almost believe him.

W
E FINISH EATING
. T
HEN
we drink the rest of the beer. It’s not until we’re on the last bottle that I start thinking about the other times I’ve drunk beer with John.

Both times turned out pretty weird.

“Are you tired, Yili?” he asks, watching me.

“A little.”

He stands. Tidies up the take-out containers and the paper plates, stuffing them in the plastic bag and tying the bag shut.

I look around, at the big room, the king-size bed. And I think, What the fuck? Are we going to be sharing this bed?

My heart starts to pound, and I’m not sure why. Because yeah, he’s creepy, but he’s also pretty good-looking.

I stand up, too, bracing myself on the table.

John tosses the bag in the trash.

“I, uh … I need to give the dog her antibiotic,” I say.

He nods. “I will let you sleep.”

With that he slings his black duffel over his shoulder and heads to the door. So I guess he has his own room. I follow. You know, to be polite.

He pauses by the door. “Tomorrow … I can take you someplace. Wherever you need to go. If you like.”

“Thanks. I …” The truth is, I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do tomorrow. “Anyway, thanks. For … you know. Helping me with the dog.”

We’re standing pretty close together, but I still don’t exactly expect it when John leans over and kisses me.

He does it fast, presses his lips against mine and then draws back. Like he’s nervous. The clueless, slightly awkward guy I met at that party a year ago.

I don’t know why, but it pisses me off.

“That the best you can do?”

His face darkens. He takes a step closer; we’re standing toe-to-toe. And then he kisses me for real, his body up against mine, my tits against his hard chest, his one hand tangling in my hair, the other running down my back till it cups my ass.

And yeah, I guess this is what I wanted.

I
WANT THE LIGHTS
out, but he wants one turned down low. “Because you are beautiful,” he says softly, “and I want to look at you.”

“I’m not.” Hearing him say that makes me get teary, which is stupid, and I know it. But I’m a mess. I don’t like looking at myself, especially my leg. Why would anyone else want to look at me, unless he’s some kind of freak?

“You are wrong,” he says. “And I can prove it to you.”

We’re lying on the bed, and he rocks back, resting on his calves and heels. His dick is standing at attention, like a good little soldier. Not the biggest one I’ve ever seen, but it’s nice. Trim and hard, like the rest of him. I like the neat black hair around it, too. I reach my hand out.

“No, Yili,” he says.

“No?”

He stretches out next to me, his face close to mine. “You know about Dao?”

“Taoism?”

“Yes.”

His fingers start tracing light patterns all over me, from the crease of my jaw down to the hollow of my neck, onto my nipple, along my ribs, and it’s making me crazy.

“I … uh, just,
ren fa di, di fa tian, tian fa
 …” It’s this Taoist rhyme I learned in Chinese class.

“
Tian fa dao
,” John supplies. “
Dao fa ziran.
”

Man follows Earth, Earth follows Heaven, Heaven follows the Way, the Way follows Nature.

“Yeah. That,” I manage.

“You know what Taoists believe?”

“Uh …”

“Taoists believe that man is yang. Man must preserve essence.”

“Essence?”

“
You
know,” he whispers.

I can guess.

“Women, women are yin. Men only have so much yang essence. But women, women have always their yin. In this way women are stronger than men.”

His hand moves lower, and I am not feeling strong.

“Taoist say it’s very good for man to … to get yin from woman. But she only release yin if he pleases her. So he should be inside her as long as he can. And please her many times.”