Hour of the Rat (35 page)

“I think this is it,” the cabdriver says.

A nondescript warehouse in an isolated area. Fucking awesome. It’s like the cover of those paperbacks my mom used to read, with the chick in a nightgown running through the castle carrying a candle, and I’m the stupid chick dripping the candle wax.

“You sure?”

“We can ask.”

I really don’t want to go knock on that door and ask.

Across from where the cars are parked, there’s a small building, your basic white tile and cement. Two businesses, it looks like. On the left is cigarettes and booze, one of those state-owned stores that are everywhere. The other, I can see a glass-topped freezer and a soft-drink cooler, so I’m guessing snacks and sundries.

The driver has the same thought I do. He pulls the car up to the store.

“
Ni deng wo, hao buhao?
” I ask. Can you wait for me? Because I so do not want to get left out here by myself.

He nods. “
Wo kending keyi deng ni.
” He can wait. Which makes sense, since I haven’t paid him yet.

It’s raining, not hard, but it’s cold out, too, colder than Kunming anyway. Feels like mid-forties. I turn up the collar of my jacket, glad that I’m wearing my knit hat.

I decide to go into the snack store. I could use some water. There’s a middle-aged woman behind the counter, small, stout. Ordinary, except her hair’s done up in this fancy bun, these swooping, shining waves, some kind of silver comb holding it together.

Must be an ethnic-minority thing.

I grab a bottle of water from the cooler and put it on the counter. “
Ni hao. Duo shao qian?
”

“
San kuai.
”

I give her a five-yuan note, get two coins back. “Please, can
I ask, that building over there … Do you know, is that Bright Future Seed Company?”

“Yes,” she says. “Bright Future Seed Company.”

I don’t know what to ask next. Or if I should ask anything at all.

“So … I can buy seeds there?”

She frowns. “
Bu qingchu.
” Not clear. “I don’t think you can buy seeds. Not too many people work there. Maybe is just a storehouse?”

“Okay.
Xie xie
.”

Now what?

I exit the store, and I think about what to do.

A part of me really wants to be all action-movie heroine. Just go kick down the doors over there and see what’s up.

Except I suck at kicking down doors. And I’m pretty sure that it’s a really bad idea to try.

A truck trundles by on the frontage road, stirring up dust and spewing diesel.

I’ll take a couple pictures with my iPhone, I decide. Document it. Tell Natalie everything that’s happened and everything I’ve found.

There are other people I could ask to help. Harrison. Maybe even Creepy John. But I’m not going to do that until I tell Natalie exactly what the risks of asking them might be.

I’m thinking about all this, staring at the road. I see a motorcycle cart, a three-wheeler with a wooden bed. The engine sounds like a series of exploding fireworks. It’s not going very fast. Those things rarely can.

There are iron crates on it. Crates full of dogs. Crammed in there like livestock. Barking. Whimpering. I can hear them, their cries fading as the cart disappears down the road.

They eat a lot of dog meat in Guizhou, I heard.

“
Ni hao!
”

I just about jump out of my skin.

I turn, and standing there is this girl. Well, woman. Young woman. She’s wearing a white blouse and a blue smock, like a work uniform.

“Can I help you?”

“I, uh …”

She’s smiling at me. She’s cute, looks like an ad for a product, like she’s about to dissolve into giggles. Glossy black pigtails with pink-and-white plastic ponytail holders shaped like …

“I’m looking for Bright Future Seed Company,” I manage.

“Oh,” she says, sounding delighted. “Yes. You’ve found it.”

Hello Kitty. That’s what the ponytail holders are shaped like.

She reaches out her hand, like she wants to shake.

Her other hand comes out of her smock pocket, and she’s gripping something, something pink.

And then this wave of pain knocks me off my feet. Like those guys in Guiyu with their iron bars are somehow beating on every part of me all at once, and everything spasms. I can’t control myself, I feel like something slams into me—a car, maybe, that’s all I can think of.

And I’m on the ground, looking up at the girl with the Hello Kitty ponytail holders.

I hear shouts—the cabdriver, I think, then the girl: “We have a doctor! I’ll call the doctor!”

And I try to object, say, “No, no, don’t leave me here! Don’t—” and it slams into me again, this pain, and a part of me watches the rest of me curl up and writhe and convulse, and that part thinks, must be a taser or something like that.

But that part of me can’t do a fucking thing about it.

I
CAN
’
T MOVE
.

Then my muscles start coming back to life. I try to sit up—because I should sit up, right?—and Hello Kitty, the pink thing she’s holding, she moves her finger, and I’m struck by lightning again, out of control, losing my shit. Screaming. But there’s still this part of me that’s detached, flying above it all, trying to think it through.

When they tase you to say hello, you have to figure it’s not going to end well.

I’m lying on my back in this little room. Some other guys came from somewhere—the warehouse, it must have been—and carried me here. And there’s these wires, I can see them, like spiderwebbing, rising from my arm and my stomach.

If I try to move, if I try to talk, if I try to do anything, she pushes the button again.

So I don’t move. I don’t talk. I just lie there. And wait.

I don’t have to wait too long before two new guys enter the room. They’re a step up from the first two, who look like your basic rent-a-thugs. These guys are dressed better. One Chinese, one Western.

I don’t recognize the Western guy, but I know the type.
Forty-something. Gym muscles under the nice coat, belly going soft. Hair cut down to stubble, to minimize the bald spot.

Hello Kitty hands him the Taser. Funny, I think. It looks like a video-game controller. Like a bright pink Wii.

He kneels down next to me.

“Ellie McEnroe. I’ve heard about you.”

American. “Nice things, I hope.” My voice is raw. It hurts to talk.

His thumb hovers over the trigger. I cringe.

He grins. “Good girl. We understand each other.”

The Chinese guy jerks his head at the rent-a-thugs. “Bring two chairs,” he snaps. One of them hustles off.

American guy rocks back on his heels. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. You’re going to answer me. We’re clear on that?”

I nod.

“Where’s Jason Turner?”

Oh, fuck. I’m screwed. I tell him the truth: “I don’t know.”

His thumb twitches. I’m shaking now, so hard it’s like he’s already pushed the button. He laughs.

“One more chance,” he says. “Where’s Jason?”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t know.”

By the time I can move again, the thug’s come back with the chairs. The American and the Chinese guy sit in them, the American’s chair pulled up to me, practically touching me, the Chinese guy’s farther back.

The American nudges me with his foot. “Hey,” he says. “You with us? Want to try again?”

“I …”

The Chinese guy looks bored. He lights a cigarette. He’s got a sharp haircut, wears a snappy black jacket. Probably Armani or Gucci or whatever the fuck.

Part of me just wants to shut down. Curl up in a ball and they can do whatever the fuck it is they’re going to do. Because even if I wanted to, I can’t answer him.

“I …” I clear my throat. Try, I tell myself. Say something. “I’m friends with his brother. We served together. In Iraq.”

I wait for the shock. It doesn’t happen. Instead the guy is watching me. Listening.

He’s ex-military, I’m willing to bet. That’s the only thing I’ve got to play. So I play it.

“Jason’s brother … he got blown up pretty good. TBI. Lost an arm, too. He’s pretty messed up.”

The American nods. He knows this already.

“We’re buddies,” I say. “You know how it is. He heard Jason was in China. Asked me if I could find him. I said I’d try.”

“Okay,” he finally says. “So how’d you know to come here? And to Dali?”

“Jason’s girlfriend. I … I met her. In Shantou. He left her a list. She gave it to me.”

“And how’d you find her?”

Fuck. I can’t think straight. I don’t know what’s safe to say. What isn’t.

He pushes the trigger.

“Yangshuo,” I gasp, when I can talk. “Dog had a postcard. From Jason. So I went there. That’s where they met. I just … I just asked around.”

He leans back in his chair. Crosses his arms over his chest. Sighs. Tilts his head toward the Chinese guy. “I think it’s pretty clear where the leak came from,” he says. Then he turns back to me.

“We don’t let little terrorist fucks like your pal Jason interfere with our business. It’s not acceptable.”

“Okay,” I say.

“And we don’t take kindly to people stealing our intellectual property and trying to make a profit off it.”

“I, uh … okay.”

“So if you want to make things right, you better tell me, right now, anything else you know. Where you got your information, who your sources are, and anything you know about where Jason Turner is.”

I’m so fucked up right now I can’t even think. I have these flashes. About Langhai and his videos. About Han Rong, who I’m pretty sure is not to be trusted, and his fellow weasel Russell. I wouldn’t mind ratting those two out to these guys. They’ve got to be from Eos, right? And maybe Hongxing.

I close my eyes.

I see Boba and the birds. Sparrow, and Kang Li, and the cats.

Whatever I say, I don’t want to lead these guys back to them.

“It’s like I said. Jason sent a postcard. From Yangshuo. I went there. Asked around. Found out about Jason’s girlfriend and where she was. It wasn’t hard. You could do the same thing I did.”

The American guy sits in the chair. He stares at me. His finger brushes the trigger of the Taser.

I stare back. I can’t tell if he believes me. And I don’t know what I’ll do if he hurts me again.

Finally he tosses the Taser on the floor.

“Whatever,” he says. He stands up. The Chinese guy flicks his cigarette butt onto the floor and rises as well.

“After we’re gone, take care of the trash,” the Chinese guy says to the thugs. “Away from here.”

Hello Kitty follows them out.

Now it’s just me and the thugs.

It’s weird. Here’s these two guys, and they’re looking at me with dead eyes. Like one time I went to a restaurant in Beijing
and ordered a fish, and the waiter took the fish out of the net by the tail and slammed its head against the concrete floor right in front of me.

I’m the fish.

I don’t know why I’m so calm. They’re going to do something, they’re probably going to kill me, and it’s like I’m already feeling dead.

Outside, I hear a car start. The engine rev. Then fade away.

“I’m friends with a man in the DSD,” I say. “He’s my lover, in fact. If you hurt me, he will find you.”

I think the guy on the left, maybe there’s a flicker of doubt in his eyes. I’m a foreigner, and messing with foreigners can be a pain in the ass. Messing with the DSD an even bigger pain in the ass.

“I have money, too. More than they’re paying you.”

The other guy stoops over. Picks up the pink Taser and hands it to the one on the left. Trots out of the room.

“I’m telling the truth,” I say. “My lover works for the DSD. He knows I’m in Guiyang.”

I’m wondering how many charges one of those things has. Because this guy, he may be a thug, but he’s not very big, and he’s kind of scrawny. I’m pretty sure I’m taller than he is.

Could I do it? Could I kick him in the nuts and run?

I’m not even sure I can stand up.

“I’m telling the truth about the money, too. I can pay you.” His eyes flick down, then up; he shuffles his feet. He’s nervous about this. I’m getting to him.

“You don’t want trouble, right?”

That’s when the other guy comes back. He’s carrying a large bag, woven plastic. The kind the migrant workers carry their stuff in. Like for flour, or rice.

That and a length of rope.

Take care of the trash. Away from here
.

I’m not dead, I’m not dead yet, and I don’t want to be.

“Wait,” I say. “Just wait. You don’t want to do this. You don’t want the trouble. Listen to me, it’s not worth it. He’ll kill you. I’m telling you the truth—”

The little guy looks at the Taser, almost curiously. Like, how do I work this?

Pushes the button.

I can’t see anything for a while.

I’m aware of the other guy kneeling down by my side, fumbling with the sack and the rope. Then I hear something, a car engine, a screech of brakes, a door slam.

He lets out a curse, drops his stuff, springs to his feet. “Wait here!” he yells—at least I think that’s what he says. He’s speaking in dialect, and besides, there’s a buzzing in my ears and I’m dizzy and sick, like something’s pulling on my eyes from behind, hollowing out my gut.