Chapter Five

★

This is the kind of place I fucking hate.

First off: I’ve been warned by Vicky Huang that where I’m meeting Gugu is going to be expensive.

“Dress up!” she told me over the phone, and to make it abso-fucking-lutely clear I get it, she sends me a package via FedEx—clothes.

Expensive clothes. Designer clothes. Armani and Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney. I know this because I check the labels, also because you can just tell with expensive things, the way they’re cut, the way they feel.

When I put them on, I can’t help it, I go to the bathroom to put on some mascara, see myself in the mirror, and think, Okay, I look kind of hot. We went through this whole thing before, how to dress me for my first meeting with Sidney, and the rule seemed to be if it costs a lot, it’s probably okay. This outfit looks pretty much like the last one: a black jacket, skinny low-rise pants, and a button-front shirt that’s pretending to be a men’s shirt, except it’s not (there’s more cleavage involved)—in black this time. “Slouchy boyfriend cut,” according to Lucy Wu, which is actually a real high-fashion description. Who knew?

But you need to be careful accepting people’s gifts.

Just go there, I tell myself in the subway. Meet Gugu. Meet this American guy. Try to get a read on his “moral character.” Pop smoke and go home.

“There” is a Beijing club that I’ve heard of but had managed to avoid—Entránce.

Entránce is in Chaoyang, near Workers Stadium, a part of Beijing that’s all wide roads and big buildings, nothing that really sticks in your head, except for things such as a huge neon sign for my like aesthetic plastic hospital group stuck on the side of a building that resembles a giant plastic footstool, like the ones you’d find in a preschool. The kind of area where crossing the street is a major hike because it’s six or eight lanes wide.

Normally I wait for a pack of other pedestrians to cross with, safety in numbers and all, and I feel like they have a better sense of when it’s safe to go, given that traffic laws are still a little more theoretical than actual a lot of the time here, but it’s already 11:00 p.m., and there aren’t all that many people on the streets around here after the end of the business day.

I hump it across, my leg throbbing. Not like I’m going to get a pain-free evening when I have to do something I really don’t want to do, right?

I should have taken a cab, I think, except sometimes you can’t get a cab to drop you where you want to go because it’s too much of a hassle for them to turn around in the traffic, where so many streets have iron barriers.

Cars speed by me, a couple of them making illegal left turns, and I grip one of those iron fences, waist-high, painted white, take a moment to wait for a gap in the rushing cars, to catch my breath. For some reason I’m thinking about this time in the Sandbox when I was the convoy medic and we were stuck because this bus had gotten blown up in the middle of the intersection, a couple of cars, too, and we couldn’t get through. So all of us stop, the Humvees, the KBR trucks in between. And we wait. And it’s so fucking hot, and I’m staring out a rippled safety window from the backseat of a Humvee at the busted asphalt and these painted cement buildings with rusted balconies. There are no people around. They’re out of sight, hiding. Waiting for something else to blow.

Cross the street, desert queen, I tell myself. Nothing’s going to blow up here. I’ve had some bad shit happen in China, but none of it involved things blowing up.

I make it across the street.

From the sidewalk there’s nothing much to Entránce, just a sparkling white dome kind of entrance thing backing up against an anonymous wall of squat glassy buildings that occupy the block.

Inside the dome is a metal detector flanked by two bouncers—a Chinese guy and a black guy, both with shaved heads and bouncer-size shoulders. Great. Now I have to worry if the titanium rod and screws in my leg are going to set off the fucking metal detector. Usually it’s fine, but every once in a while . . .

“Private party tonight,” the black guy says in English. He has an accent, African, but I don’t know from where.

“I’m invited.”

Lucky me, I’m on the list, and I don’t set off the metal detector. I hobble over to the escalators heading down into the club proper, bass thumping louder as I descend.

Someone could blow up Entránce and I wouldn’t be too upset.

Everything’s all white, plastic, and shiny. A dance track shakes the floor, bass vibrating through my rib cage, the highs loud enough to cut glass. My ears already ring from getting blown up and all. I don’t need this.

I find a cocktail napkin and tear off a couple strips, roll those up, and stuff them in my ears.

There are two or three levels to the club, a main pit with a couple of bars and a stripper platform and pole in the middle of it all—I know it’s a stripper platform/pole because there’s a white woman, Russian maybe, wearing a fringed bikini thing and platform shoes, gyrating on it. Upstairs is filled with white egg-shaped booths wedged up against a Plexiglas wall topped with chrome. The guests are mostly young. They look like too much money. I’ve seen plenty of rich people in the art crowd, but this is different—more obvious bling—designer labels, the real thing, not shanzhai rip-offs, diamond-studded iPhone cases, outsize jewelry, and two-thousand-dollar watches. There are guys in white shirts and black jackets with headsets all over the place, keeping tabs.

I look for where the headsets are clustered the thickest, figuring that’s where I’ll find Gugu and his inevitable posse.

Sure enough.

In the main pit surrounding the stripper pole, a waiter deposits an ice bucket of champagne in front of a group of guys. Yeah, there are women around, too, but most of them are on the periphery—chairs pushed back from where the men gather, talking mostly to one another. Glasses of red wine sit in ranks on an adjacent table.

I recognize Gugu right off—Vicky emailed me his photo. Early twenties, wearing a two-hundred-dollar T-shirt under a military-style jacket, except the camouflage pattern is done in acid-bright greens and reds. Some designer bullshit, no doubt. He’s a pretty boy, long bangs hanging limply over one eye like a teen idol, but when I look closely, I see Sidney’s bony nose and high cheeks. There’s a girl hanging on his shoulder who looks like she’s about sixteen, wearing a rhinestone-studded trucker cap with skull patches, ed hardy embroidered in red on the brim. Next to her is another girl with pigtails who looks even younger, dressed in some kind of designer sailor suit—high-fashion anime.

Sitting on the left is a white guy. Thirty-something. Maybe older. Dark hair, broad face. Good-looking, I guess. Heavy-lidded eyes, like he’s half asleep or drunk. Full red lips, curved in a slight smile.

The “bad influence.” A guy by the name of Marsh Brody.

I really don’t want to do this.

“Introductions taken care of!” Vicky told me. “You just tell Gugu that Mr. Cao wants him to look at art, for museum project. It is his filial duty.”

I mean, how lame is that?

Especially because the whole museum thing was actually my idea—an art museum in Xingfu Cun, the ghost city Sidney Cao built.

When I say the museum was my idea, what I mean is it was a line of bullshit I spouted to get myself out of a jam, nothing I’d thought of in advance or knew anything about or had any intention of doing. I was just trying to appeal to Sidney’s ego—“Do something for your legacy.” Meaning, So your three kids won’t just sell off your billion-dollar collection after you die.

It worked at the time. I got out of the jam. But shit like this always comes back and bites me in the ass.

Case in point.

Gugu turns toward the girl in the rhinestone baseball cap, smiles, and pours her some champagne. Marsh leans back in his chair, watching the two, eyes at half-mast, still with that little smile. Sailor Girl drifts over to him, glass of champagne in one hand, cigarette in the other. He grins, reaches up, and puts his arm around her, hand brushing her sideboob. She perches on his lap for a moment. I can’t tell if she’s comfortable there or not.

Just get it over with, I tell myself.

But maybe have a drink first.

I grab a glass of wine off the tray of a passing waiter and take a slug. Although I’m not the world’s most educated wino, I can tell this is pretty good stuff. It’s the kind of thing you get an education in, hanging out with rich people.

Slow down, McEnroe, I tell myself.

I find an empty spot against the railing, where I’m not in Gugu and Marsh’s direct line of sight but I can still keep an eye on them, and sip my wine. The music pounds, the beats slamming into my chest, light show keeping time, like synchronized fireworks.

I really want to get out of here.

I drink some more, about two-thirds of the glass, just enough to feel the beginnings of a comforting buzz. Put the glass down on the bar and approach Gugu’s table.

“Cao xiansheng, ni hao,” I say, practically shouting over the music. “Sorry to bother you.”

He looks up. Pushes his limp hair off his face and stares at me.

“I’m Ellie McEnroe. Your father wanted us to meet.”

Gugu continues to stare. His bangs start drifting back over one eye. I’m thinking either Vicky Huang screwed up this introduction (unlikely) or he wants nothing to do with me.

“To discuss the museum project,” I say, feeling my cheeks flush.

He sweeps his hair off his face again and finally nods. “Qing zuo,” he says, indicating a chair across from him and to his right.

Please sit.

I do. He tilts his head at Rhinestone-Cap Girl and mutters something I can’t hear. She straightens up, grabs a glass of wine from the table, and hands it to me. Behind her, Sailor Girl covers her mouth with her hand and giggles.

“Xiexie,” I say. She responds with an eye roll. I’m guessing she doesn’t much like playing waitress.

I sip the wine. “Very good,” I say, because it is.

Gugu shrugs.

Boy, we’re having some fun now. I wonder how long I’m obligated to do this.

Meet his son, meet this American, offer your expert opinion.

“So,” Gugu finally says, in English. “You’re involved with my father’s museum.”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I am.”

“And he wants you to talk to me.”

I nod.

He tosses back his drink. Lifts his hand to call a waiter. “Why?”

“Well, I represent some emerging contemporary Chinese artists,” I say, and I’m kind of proud of myself for remembering the proper art lingo. “Your father wanted to get your opinion on some of the work. To see if it belongs in the museum.”

Gugu snorts. “What do I know about it? Why ask me? I’m not even interested in these things.”

“Well . . . uh, he wants you to be involved. Because it’s kind of a big deal. You know, it’s his legacy and all.”

He stares at me with the eye not covered by the hair curtain. “If I am involved, then why not my brother and my sister?”

I sip my wine. It’s a good point.

So I fake it.

“They will be involved, too. This is just my first meeting.”

I say this, and I’m thinking, Oh, great. Because getting involved with one of Sidney Cao’s kids is bad enough, and now I’ve opened the door to the other two. It’s like what you’re not supposed to do with vampires, right? Invite them in.

“I see,” Gugu says.

The waiter arrives with his drink. Some amber stuff in a tumbler. Gugu tosses it back. Beads of sweat rise on his forehead. I’m guessing he’s getting pretty plastered.

“So what do you want?” He hiccups. Leans back in his chair, legs splayed. “Meaning, what does my father want me to do?”

We didn’t exactly cover that part of the plan. So once again I fake it.

“Just like I said. Look at some work. And talk about the . . . the philosophy. And the goals. Of the museum.”

Gugu laughs. “The goals are whatever my father wants them to be.”

“Yeah.” I drink some wine. I really suck at this—being all undercover. Getting people to tell me what I need to find out.

Besides, I know he’s right. This whole museum thing is about Sidney’s ego. Even if Gugu did get involved, decided he really gave a shit about art, and about a museum, and about his dad’s legacy, I’m pretty sure if he and Sidney disagreed about something, Gugu would end up on the losing end of the decision.

“I think he’s just hoping you’ll take an interest,” I finally say. “Because, you know, someone will need to be in charge after he’s gone.”

“Fuck that,” Gugu pronounces. He holds up his hand for the waiter. “Let Tiantian or Meimei take an interest. I have better things to do.”

Tiantian, the older brother. Meimei, the girl in the middle.

“Like what?” I think to ask.

Gugu shrugs. “Maybe movies.” He leans over and mutters something to Rhinestone-Cap Girl again. She pouts a little. Tilts her head at Sailor Girl, who grabs another glass of wine off the table and brings it to me, pausing a little to execute a sort of bad charm-school curtsy.

I take the glass. “Thank you.”

“I’m Celine.” Now she tilts her head at Rhinestone-Cap Girl, who has resumed her barnacle duty at Gugu’s side. “That is Betty.”

“I’m Ellie.”

“Very happy to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

She giggles. She seems to do that a lot. “This is such an interesting party. Don’t you think?”

“I, uh . . . yeah.”

“You don’t really think so?” Her head’s tilted down, and she’s looking at me through thick mascaraed eyelashes, a little smile on her face.

“Celine, why are you bothering her?” Gugu snaps.

“She’s not bothering me,” I say, because I don’t want any trouble and besides, he’s being kind of a dick.

“Sometimes Gugu is too polite,” Celine says. “He doesn’t really know how to have fun.” She blows a thin stream of cigarette smoke in Gugu’s direction.

Okay, maybe she’s kind of a bitch, too. But looking at Gugu’s sweating face and bored expression, I have to wonder if she’s right.

“Movies, huh,” I say to Gugu. “You want to make them?”

“Sure, why not? Culture and soft power are part of the new Five-Year Plan.” He laughs.

Next to him Marsh laughs, too.

The guy I’m supposed to be evaluating for his moral character.

I turn to him. Put on my best fake smile. Which I’m pretty sure isn’t very good. “I’m Ellie McEnroe,” I say.

He smiles. “Marsh Brody.” He’s got a gunmetal shadow of beard outlining his broad cheeks, shading his jaw. I’m guessing he’s the kind of guy who cultivates a two-day stubble.

We shake. His hand lingers. One of his fingers strokes the back of my palm, ever so lightly.

Yeah, that kind of guy.

“You live in Beijing?” he asks.

“Uh-huh. You?”

He tilts his head to one side. “Part-time. I’m back and forth between here and LA.”

“LA. So are you in movies or TV, something like that?”

“Something like that.” He thinks to smile again. “I do a few different things. Mostly I try to connect Western businesses with the right Chinese partners.”

“Oh, yeah.” I smile back. “You’re a consultant, right?”

“Right.”

We stare at each other. I get the feeling he’s irritated. But it’s not like I called him an English teacher.

“Hey,” Gugu says suddenly, his hand flopping open-palmed on one thigh, “let’s go somewhere. This is boring.”

Rhinestone-Cap Girl, Betty, rests her head on his shoulder. “But this is your party,” she says with a pout.

Behind her, Celine smiles.

“So? It can go on without me. Marsh, you want to leave, right?”

Marsh nods.

Gugu turns in my direction. “You want to come along?”

“I, uh . . .”

Have absolutely no desire to go anywhere with these guys.

“Sure. I just, uh . . . need to go to the restroom.”

Fuck.

I hold my hands under the automatic sink, bow my head, and watch the water circle the drain, and I wonder how I’m going to get out of this. All the alarms I have are pinging, but bugging out has risks, too. Because the last thing I need to do is piss off Sidney. We’re friends now. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be on his enemies list.

I exit the bathroom.

Unlike the rest of the club, this part’s done in black: black paint and black vinyl. Tiny spotlights guide me back out into the main room. I start to follow them.

“Hey.”

He’s come out of the men’s room just ahead of me. Marsh.

“Hi,” I say.

He stands there for a second, blocking my way down the hall. “You coming?”

He takes a few steps forward. All of a sudden, he’s standing too close, and I back up without thinking about it, trying to get some space. My butt touches the black wall.

“Aren’t you with Celine?”

“Define ‘with.’”

Marsh is right in front of me. He stretches out an arm, places his palm flat against the wall, right by my head.

“Why don’t you come along? It’ll be fun. Promise.”

I can feel his hot breath on my ear. My heart’s thumping hard.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

“Too bad.” He shrugs and backs off. “Next time.”

Fuck this, I’m going home.

“Yeah,” I say to Gugu, “it’s getting a little late for me. I’ve got some appointments in the morning, and anyway, maybe we can meet in the next couple of days to . . . uh, talk about the museum. See some artists.”

We’re standing over by the stripper pole, where Betty, Celine, and a bunch of other girls are dancing to Lady Gaga. They look like kids.

“Sure,” Gugu says with a yawn. “Maybe you can meet my brother and sister.” He snorts. “We can all plan this museum together.”

“Sounds great. I’ll give you my card.”

Not like he needs it, I’m pretty sure Vicky Huang would tell him how to get a hold of me. But I do the polite thing anyway: reach into my shoulder bag for my card case, pull out a business card, hold it in both hands, and extend it to Gugu. Maybe it’s corny, but why take the chance?

Gugu grasps the card with both of his hands. Gives it a cursory glance and places it in the breast pocket of his psychedelic fatigues. So he has some manners.

Behind him, Marsh lifts his hand. “Don’t I get one?”

Like I want to give this asshole my card.

What difference does it make? I ask myself. If he wants to find me, he will.

I extract another card and give it to him, one-handed. He takes it, smiling, and slips the card into his jeans.

By now Celine and Betty have drifted over. Celine smiles at me. Reaches into her tiny clutch purse and pulls out a gold card case. Extracts a card of her own.

“Here is mine,” she says. She also holds it out with both hands. Almost like she’s making fun of the whole ritual. I take it. In the dark light of the club, I can’t really see what it says, but it’s red, with yellow characters.

“You can look at my website, and my Weibo,” she says. “You know Weibo, right?”

“Sure.” Weibo is like Chinese Twitter.

There’s something sly about her smile. “Maybe you can learn more about modern Chinese culture.”

“Great,” I say. “Thanks.”

Whatever.

Now I have to give her a card back, and since I give her one, I figure I’d better offer one to Betty, too.

Betty actually studies it, like you’re supposed to, which kind of surprises me, given that she’s been kind of bitchy the entire time I’ve been here. She nods a little awkwardly, the rhinestone ball cap concealing the expression on her face.

By the time I make it back to my apartment, it’s past 1:00 a.m. Mimi slides off her spot on the couch with a thump and trots over to greet me. Somehow she knows when it’s me coming in. She never barks. Maybe she can hear my limp.

There’s a note from my mom stuck up on the fridge, held there by a magnet with a portrait of Hu Jintao done up like Colonel Sanders, below his face the slogan prc—i’m lovin’ it!

“At Andy’s,” the note says. “We walked Mimi around midnight. Hope you had a fun evening!”

Oh, yeah, it was a blast.

“On how many levels of bad was that?” I say to Mimi.

She whines softly.

“You want a treat? You been a good dog?”

I grab a hunk of dried beef from a jar in the pantry. I am way too paranoid to buy her any of the premade doggie treats from here—too many food-contamination issues. “Sit! Zuo!”

She sits. Holds up one paw like one of those Japanese ceramic cats. “Good girl!” I give her the treat. “Let’s go watch some TV, okay?”

First, though, I’m getting out of these clothes. I go into my bedroom and start to undress, and all of a sudden I can’t get out of them fast enough.

I throw on some sweats and a T-shirt. Grab a cold beer and a glass and head for the couch.

Maybe I shouldn’t have bailed. I didn’t really complete the mission. I’m going to have to tell Sidney something, but what?

Marsh is trouble, I’m pretty sure, and I guess I can tell Sidney that, but on the other hand, given Sidney, do I want to be responsible for what might happen to Marsh without being really sure?

Though I’m sure he’s a total douche.

This picture flashes in my head, a Roman-emperor dude like from a cheesy gladiator movie giving the thumbs-down. Then some other pictures, about what happens to people who get in Sidney’s way.

The problem is, there are too many bad pictures in my head just waiting to show themselves.

I sit on the couch with my dog next to me, her head resting on my good leg, and I sip my beer. I’m feeling kind of sick, that cold nausea I get deep in my gut when I fuck something up really bad.

Somehow, when Sidney asked me to do this, all I could think about was what he could do for me—or to me, depending. I didn’t really think about what might happen to Gugu’s “bad influence.” I mean, I thought about it in the abstract, a little. But now there’s a living, breathing guy in my head. And even if he is a scumbag . . . do I want to be responsible for that?

First do no harm, right?

You haven’t fucked it up yet, I tell myself.

I’ll think of something. Play things with Sidney and/or Vicky as best I can. Tell them I don’t know enough yet, that I need more time. Maybe I’ll actually do some work on this museum project, who knows?

Right now I’m just glad to be home with my dog and a Yanjing Draft.

The evening those guys are having, it’s the kind that ends up with somebody running over a migrant vendor with a Ferrari, or with said Ferrari smashed to pieces against a freeway abutment—with or without dead hookers. It’s how the fu er dai, the second-generation rich, tend to roll.

Bugging out was the right thing to do.