While Boss Mak languished in bed in Dongguan, awaiting Oli and the committee’s decision, his daughter, the former senior VP of Mak International, settled into her new role as its acting president. Armed with a Wharton MBA, a wardrobe of smartly off-kilter Vivienne Westwood suits, and her father’s unwavering support, Mandy Mak introduced a steady stream of initiatives, from restructuring assembly lines into small teams of workers for maximum flexibility to issuing sharp new uniforms to boost morale. But her biggest innovation was implemented not in the Maks’ legitimate factories, but in our counterfeits business.
In Winnie’s original scheme, we were constantly on the defense, playing catch-up with the brands. Once a new style hit a boutique, we raced to track down a black factory in Guangzhou that could get a hold of that handbag, take it apart, source the necessary materials, and train their workers to perfectly re-create each component. Naturally, this took time. And because counterfeits factories were routinely raided and shut down, we constantly had to seek out new partners.
The solution that Mandy Mak laid out to Winnie over the phone was as simple as it was risky. The Maks’ legitimate factories already produced handbags for all the biggest brands, so instead of running two separate businesses, one legitimate and one less so, she proposed they counterfeit their own brands, right there on the premises. Why not build their own black factory nearby? Genuine samples and blueprints could pass through the back door into the hands of our associates, enabling replicas to be released at the same time as their real counterparts, a veritable coup.
Now, Detective, I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t the black factory eat into the profits of the legitimate one? The answer is no, not necessarily. Generally speaking, the customer who drops a couple hundred dollars for a one-to-one is not at all the same person who pays upward of two thousand dollars for the real thing. Mandy Mak wouldn’t be cannibalizing her legitimate factories but growing her family’s handbag empire as a whole. All she had to do was make sure the international brands never, ever found out.
To be clear, the whole plan was outrageous, truly outrageous. I couldn’t fathom why Winnie had bothered to recount it to me instead of rejecting it outright. The international brands, already skittish about manufacturing their goods in China, yet unable to walk away from the cheap labor, implemented harsh regulations to combat IP theft. Leftover materials had to be accounted for down to the millimeter; blueprints were stored in industrial safes, factory rejects swiftly destroyed.
But when I attempted to warn Winnie about the riskiness of this new venture, to express the opinion that had Boss Mak been in better health, he’d have roundly rejected this move, she replied with a smirk and said, I’ve never seen him turn down money, and this is a hell of a lot of it. She quickly came to the conclusion that I had to go to Dongguan to work out the details of this new partnership, one that would make the Maks our sole supplier of counterfeit handbags.
I argued that the plan was too dangerous, that the Maks could never pull it off, that Winnie was giving up too much power, and all for something that was doomed to fail.
I even tried to appeal to her ego. This was your ingenious scheme, I said. You’re the one who made this all happen. And now, if they control the supply chain, you’re at their mercy. You work for them.
Frankly, Detective, I can’t say for sure if I truly bought into my own arguments, or if I was just grasping for reasons to decline the trip. Because even then I knew what it meant: to go to Dongguan would be to become Winnie’s proxy, to leap from employee to partner, equally accountable, equally culpable, equally entangled with the Maks and their numerous other illegitimate schemes.
And so I tried to buy myself some time, suggesting we take a few weeks to consider our options, but Winnie wouldn’t hear of it. She swept an arm through the air, as though that could vanquish all my concerns.
No, she said. I didn’t get this far by playing it safe. We’re in.
Desperate, I told her I couldn’t leave Henri.
In a tone laced with disdain, she said. Come on, not this again.
Oli will never let me go. You know how he is.
Her expression hardened. Well, if you can’t talk to him, I can. In fact, I can tell him everything. Is that what you want?
The skin on the back of my neck prickled. I searched her face for any traces of humor or irony—surely, she was kidding. Surely, she was a split second away from barking out a laugh. Instead, I found only pure distilled scorn. In that moment I saw Winnie for who she truly was: not an awkward bookworm, nor a brilliant iconoclast, but a common thug.
I said, All right. When should I leave?
She clapped her hands, instantly returned to her old cheerful self. The shift was dizzying.
We’ll get you on the next flight out. It’ll be great, you’ll see. As though she hadn’t just threatened to ruin me, my marriage, my life.
That evening, when Oli walked through the door, weary and depleted, as he always was at the end of the week, I was ready to press my case. His favorite boeuf bourguignon—the only thing I’d ever learned to cook—simmered on the stove; four kinds of hard and soft cheeses and an assortment of water crackers were fanned out across the walnut board; a good red Burgundy beckoned from the decanter.
I served my husband a steaming helping of the rich, dark stew. The meat was tender, the shallots fragrant, the mushrooms glossy as pearls. He inched his chair to mine and laid his head on my shoulder. I pressed the pads of my fingers into his scalp and he practically purred.
That was when I told him about the trip.
His head launched up like a basketball. Shenzhen, China? Day after tomorrow?
I reminded him that Winnie couldn’t leave the country because of her citizenship application and I was the only lawyer on staff. I heard the words leave my mouth and fail to make sense, so I babbled on and on. But since I couldn’t reveal the real reason for the trip, all Oli could gather was that I was jetting off once again, at the last minute, and worse, leaving our son behind.
Ava, tell me the truth, are you having an affair? he asked.
The piece of meat in my mouth turned to gristle and I spat it into my napkin.
Your hair, he said, gesturing at my new auburn highlights, and those colorful dresses, it’s so fucking cliché.
I swore I was faithful; he was the one who’d always chided me to wear more color, I did it for him! I tried to explain that business in China had to be done face-to-face, that I would shake some hands and sign some stuff and turn around and fly right back, oh, except that my grandmother was turning ninety this week, and for once in my life I’d be able to celebrate with her, and surely he could grant me that much?
What’s come over you? he asked. Can you hear how bizarre you sound right now?
I shut my mouth.
Oli pushed aside his plate. Our son’s being raised by his nanny.
Now this was too much. My carefully laid-out argument splintered like a log. I roared back, And that’s my fault? Coming from a man who lives apart from his family for the majority of the week?
You know the kind of hours I’m working, Oli said, his voice cracking. This’ll be the first day off I’ve had in three weeks.
Here the regular me, the real me, would have caught myself, would have stopped and listened. The possessed me charged on, thinking only of herself.
Oh, come now, you knew what you were getting into. No one forced you.
He blanched. Fine. Pay Maria to stay the entire time you’re gone. I can’t drive back and forth from Palo Alto every night.
I’m glad your priorities are so clear. I stormed around the room searching for my phone so I could send Maria a message, offer another raise.
He said, You’re the one upending our lives with this so-called job. For christ’s sake, I don’t even know what it is you do.
That’s because you never listen, I yelled from the kitchen, where my phone had been resting precariously close to the sink. I’ve told you a half dozen times, but all you do is work, work, work and then come home on the weekend and spend fifteen minutes here and there playing with your son. You call that parenting?
In lieu of a response there was a deafening crash. I ran back to the dining room where, in a highly uncharacteristic move, Oli had swept the Baccarat crystal vase that had been a gift from his mother off the sideboard and onto the floor.
He stood there with his head in his hands, shoulders heaving with each breath. A lifetime ago I would have taken him in my arms, nestled my face into the warm hollow beneath his chin. Instead, I told him, Clean that up before you leave, and walked out of the room.
Three days after Winnie first proposed and then ordered me on this trip, I landed at the Shenzhen airport in the middle of a deluge. I was lamenting my failure to pack an umbrella when I caught sight of my name on a placard, held by a young man in a budget suit with stylishly shaggy collar-length hair.
Despite my protests, he wrested my Rollaboard from me and dashed into the downpour beneath a capacious black golf umbrella, promising to return with the car.
A while later, I stepped outside and was instantly shrink-wrapped in humidity for the fleeting moment before I slid into the gleaming silver Mercedes, chilled to the temperature of a walk-in refrigerator. The leather seat was stiff and unyielding, the icy bottled water in the cup holder so cold it made my teeth ache. When I typed the Wi-Fi password taped above the door handle into my phone, a picture of a sleeping Henri arrived from Maria, the sweat-matted hair plastered to his forehead, a sure sign he’d been crying. The guilt that gushed through me was a viscous, toxic sludge. I checked my email to see if Oli had written, but he had not.
Traffic slowed to a standstill, and the driver explained that flooding had closed one of the highway lanes. Outside my hermetically sealed box, a couple on a motorcycle, clad in makeshift rain ponchos fashioned from garbage bags, squinted miserably into the storm. A red-faced man in a tiny electric car leaned on the horn and then lowered his window and hacked out a wad of phlegm.
I popped in my earbuds and pulled up a Chinese podcast on my phone to get the language in my head, which would have made Winnie scoff. Stop worrying, she’d chided. You’re not there to have deep conversations, you’re there to demonstrate that we care enough about this partnership to show up in person. For once you don’t have to be the top student. Just get on that plane and go.
Was I surprised she was back to cracking jokes as though we were old friends again? Not really, Detective. You’d know better than I—isn’t that the mark of a successful gangster? Utterly charming and utterly ruthless from one moment to the next?
Case in point, in that car, I stretched out my legs and listened to a strikingly charismatic ex–con man explain how he’d convinced Chinese housewives to hire him to murder their cheating husbands so that he could abscond with their life savings.
The next time I opened my eyes, the rain had cleared, and pale streams of light battled through the clouds. The car stopped before a gate that slid back to let us through. The driver drove up to the factory’s main entrance, parked, and hurried around to open my door.
A tall man with a prematurely receding hairline bounded down a short flight of stairs to greet me. He was dressed more casually than the driver in a tight Prada polo shirt. In rapid, Chinese-accented English he said, Hello! I’m Kaiser Shih, deputy manager of Mak International. How was your flight? You flew in from San Francisco, right? I just got back from L.A. last week. It’s my favorite city in America. Well, after Las Vegas, of course.
He led me through the glass doors and into an elevator that deposited us before a bright, tastefully furnished conference room. A young woman with a ballerina bun sat at the head of the table, rapidly thumbing a phone in a Goyard-monogrammed case. She was none other than Mandy Mak. Dressed in one of her trademark suits, with an asymmetrical neckline and a full, knife-pleated skirt, paired with shiny red patent stilettos that perfectly matched her lipstick, she looked like a movie star playing a CEO in a Hollywood rom-com. Next to her was a plump man in a threadbare shirt, which contrasted starkly with the thick rope of gold ringing his squat neck. This, Kaiser Shih told me, was Manager Chiang, head of the new counterfeits factory.
Introductions were made. I asked after Boss Mak, and Mandy stunned me by throwing her arms around me and thanking me for arranging the appointment with Oli and the transplant team.
In contrast, Manager Chiang soberly shook my hand.
I told him I’d heard great things about his work.
Not at all, not at all, he replied.
He’s being modest, said Mandy. Do you know why his replicas are so good? He managed to hire a floor chief from Dior’s main factory here.
The man said mildly, That is true.
We sat down at the table and went through the motions of finalizing the terms of our new agreement, after which another round of handshakes ensued.
Manager Chiang excused himself to get to another meeting.
Came from nothing, Kaiser Shih told me. Dropped out of school in the fifth grade and worked his way up—the Chinese dream.
Mandy had to leave soon after that to catch a flight to Milan for a trade show, but not before instructing Kaiser Shih to show me around the premises.
I’m sorry to miss the dinner tonight, she said, but Kaiser Shih and the others will take good care of you. Enjoy! Have a glass of champagne for me! She swished out of the room on her four-inch heels.
Kaiser Shih led me through a pair of glass doors beyond which some of the world’s finest handbags were made. The rooms were pristine and well-ventilated, giving the rows of uniformed workers—young women, all of them, with their hair pulled back beneath hairnets, their mouths and noses shielded by medical-grade masks—the precise, efficient air of surgical nurses.
In the samples room, he held up a fifties-style frame bag in bottle-green glazed leather and told me, Marc Jacobs, Spring 2020, dropping next year.
As the tour progressed, I studied irregularly shaped panels of leather laid out across tabletops like antique maps. I watched workers stitch Tory Burch labels into patterned clutches, those navy-blue twin T’s that, by now, I knew by heart. Turning a corner, I nearly walked into a rack of Prada Saffiano leather totes, hanging there as casually as whole roasted ducks in a Chinatown window.
Facetiously Kaiser Shih said, Tell no one you saw these, or Prada will have my neck. He had an infectious laugh, resonant and flowing like a sudden surge of water from a tap.
Maybe it was dehydration from the long flight, or mild poisoning from the deadly Chinese smog that the Western press constantly lamented, or maybe it was psychological—my slowly burgeoning guilt breaking through the layers of rationalization. Whatever the case, my head began to throb. I grew wobbly and fatigued. Following Kaiser Shih up yet another staircase, the toe of my shoe caught on some minuscule overhang, and down I went.
I’m so sorry! he said. Are you all right?
I said I felt completely out of it and perhaps the pollution was to blame.
Could be, he said. Foreigners always complain about it. He gazed at me with such pity and tenderness that I wondered if we might be different species—he, so healthy and resilient, I, so vulnerable and weak.
He suggested taking me back to the hotel to rest, but I insisted on seeing the counterfeits factory; after all, I’d come all this way.
Outside, the clouds had dispersed, and the noonday sun hit me full in the face. We crossed the courtyard, skirting puddles, and followed a narrow path through a thick cove of trees to a small concrete structure at the very edge of the compound, hidden away from the eyes of international and local inspectors alike. In contrast to the rest of the buildings, this one needed a paint job, and its windows were marred by iron bars, thick curtains.
Once inside, I saw the giant nets strung across the stairwells, as though for a circus trapeze.
What’s all this? I asked, and then the answer came to me.
Worker safety, Kaiser Shih said.
My stomach roiled.
We climbed to the top floor and he pulled out a ring of keys and unlocked a heavy door. Here we are.
The room that opened up before me was blisteringly hot, though the women at the sewing machines, many inexplicably clad in long sleeves, appeared oblivious to the temperature. One or two of the women, past middle age, with more white in their hair than black, glanced my way, then returned to pushing flaps of glazed bottle-green leather across their machines.
You see? Kaiser Shih said, pointing. Ours will be ready as soon as Marc’s.
A corner of the room was reserved for an office, and someone waved at me from one of the desks. It was Ah Seng, the man who had taken me to that creepy apartment building back in January. As I returned his wave, a girl in the opposite corner of the room caught my eye. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen, and when she raised a handkerchief to mop the sweat at her hairline, I saw that her first two fingers were missing. I tasted acid in the back of my throat. My struggle to breathe in the thick swampy air was exacerbated by the fleece blankets tacked over each window. I’d naively mistaken them for curtains from down below.
Kaiser Shih touched my elbow and asked, All right?
I swallowed hard. He waved over the foreman, formerly of Dior, a lanky man with pockmarked cheeks.
Meet Ms. Wong from America, Kaiser Shih said.
The foreman held out his five-fingered hand, and when I reached for it, my body rebelled and listed to one side.
Somehow Kaiser Shih caught me and held me upright. Ah Seng rushed over with a tin cup of water, which Kaiser Shih pushed away, shouting, Get her bottled water. She’s a foreigner.
He helped me into the corridor, where it was significantly cooler. With my back pressed to the wall, I let gravity take my seat to the ground. Inside that infernal room, the whirring machinery never slowed.
Ah Seng returned with a bottle of water, which I gulped down.
I’ll drive you to the hotel, Kaiser Shih said.
There’s a driver, I managed to get out.
Then I’ll accompany you there.
In the car, he told the driver to turn up the air-conditioning and then trained the vents on me.
How can they work like that? I asked.
What do you mean? said Kaiser Shih.
It’s way too hot.
They’re used to it.
It’s inhumane.
He snorted. It’s much, much better than many I’ve seen. His gaze skimmed over me. Winnie didn’t tell you?
I knew I should stop, but I couldn’t help myself. How old was the girl in the corner?
What girl?
The one missing two fingers. Twelve? Thirteen?
He made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan. Ava, he said, if those girls could get legitimate work, why would they be there?
To this I had no answer.
The car pulled up to the Sheraton, a 1970s-era circular monstrosity the color of an overcooked salmon fillet.
Get some rest, he said. Your driver will pick you up for dinner.
In the cavernous atrium, the hotel receptionist assured me that my Chinese was good for an American and came out from behind the desk to personally escort me up to my top-floor junior suite. She droned on about the wraparound views of this grimy, smog-enveloped industrial city, the complicated system of light switches and dimmers on the wall, the complimentary platter of pears and apples and mangoes, carved to resemble local flora and fauna. At last she left, and I chucked every last apple-swan into the trash (a precaution I always took in China, along with boiling water in an electric kettle to brush my teeth). I lowered the thermostat, drew the blackout drapes, and slid into the bed. A dozen tiny fists pounded at my temples, and when I touched the back of my hand to my forehead, it burned. My body screamed for me to break loose, while my brain retorted that it was too late. I’d scrawled my name across that contract; I’d shaken each and every hand. People like these, with their money and their contacts and their illicit dealings, did not take kindly to being crossed. Hadn’t Winnie herself turned on me the instant I dared rebel?
At the designated hour, I trudged out into the still-hot day to meet my driver, who ferried me to another of Dongguan’s large luxury hotels. My strategy was to be supremely affable and uninteresting; I would get through the evening without asking inconvenient questions, without pissing anyone off. The elevator disgorged me into a palatial rooftop restaurant with brushed-gold walls and a mirrored ceiling inlaid with bronze dragons. I was led to a massive private room that could have easily sat fifty, but which currently contained a single table in the very center, around which sat three ordinary-looking men in dark blazers and one young woman.
Recognizing the woman’s ballerina bun, I cried out, Mandy, I thought you were in Milan.
The woman turned. It was not Mandy, but another young woman in a tight black bandage dress, accessorized with a heavy gold chain-link necklace. Two of the men chuckled uncomfortably, and the third said, This is Linlin, my girlfriend.
Despite both Winnie’s and Oli’s descriptions, I could not reconcile Boss Mak’s thick head of silver hair and well-groomed mustache with the sickly yellowish cast of his skin and eyes, with the way his thin shoulders swam within his jacket.
I ducked my head, mortified, and apologized to the girlfriend, who didn’t seem offended, and then I took Boss Mak’s hand. I hadn’t expected him to be well enough to come.
His grip remained commanding. He said, How could I miss the chance to meet you in person? Please thank your husband again for his time.
The other men introduced themselves. The one with the sly eyes and the garish orange tie was the recently appointed vice mayor of Guangzhou. Clearly, Boss Mak had strategically invited him to invest in our business. The older jowly man with the jet-black comb-over was the retired police chief, who received a monthly retainer in exchange for keeping all necessary parties abreast of scheduled raids.
The vice mayor cheerfully warned me that none of them spoke English, while the police chief leaned over and poured me a glass of white wine—a Burgundy grand cru.
Everyone clinked glasses and sang gan bei, including Boss Mak, who drank with almost exaggerated gusto, perhaps anticipating that if Oli agreed to take him on as a patient, he’d be required to abstain from alcohol for at least six months.
Despite the Advil I’d downed earlier, my temples throbbed like stereo speakers. I took small sips of my wine whenever pressed and hoped they’d be satisfied.
After his initial introduction, Boss Mak spoke sparingly, perhaps to preserve his energy. He all but ignored Linlin, who refilled his glass and asked if he felt chilly and wanted the air-conditioning turned down, and then, when he said no, wound a camel cashmere scarf around his neck. If anything, she seemed to be more nurse than mistress, and I couldn’t decide which was worse.
Very quickly we ran out of topics commensurate with my language ability, so I was relieved when the door to the room swung open and in walked Kaiser Shih, still dressed in the same Prada polo in lieu of a blazer.
Hello, hi, sorry I’m late, Kaiser Shih said in English.
The police chief, whose complexion glowed crimson with drink, said, At last our English expert has arrived.
Boss Mak wagged a finger at Kaiser Shih, though he spoke to me. As you probably already know, my deputy manager here talks way too much, but since I don’t know English, I only have to listen to about fifty percent of what he says.
Kaiser Shih accepted the ribbing with good-natured resignation. He asked if I was feeling better, and I lied that I was.
The vice mayor called for the waitstaff to serve the food and to open another bottle of white Burgundy. When a waitress approached with the wine, the vice mayor seized it from her, filled Kaiser Shih’s glass to the brim and said, in English, Bottoms up.
Bottoms up, the police chief cried. You’re the youngest and the tallest so you must drink the most.
Dutifully Kaiser Shih raised the glass to his lips and downed the pricey wine in one long pull, while the two men cheered him on. They reminded me of the first-year associates at my old firm—type A about everything including partying.
Now you two, Kaiser Shih said, filling the other men’s glasses. You, too, Ava, he said, pointing at me.
Weakly, I lifted my glass. A hint of menace hung over the festivities, as though at any moment, the mood might swerve from jubilant to belligerent.
Meanwhile, Boss Mak observed the proceedings with a distant amused expression, like a king gazing upon his subjects from a high perch. Each time his wineglass touched his lips, I pictured his scarred liver, shrunken and hardened, unable to clear the toxins building up within. Oli had once showed me a picture of a pair of livers, one healthy and one damaged. The good organ was smooth and pliant and a deep glowing red; the bad one pallid, rigid, brutally marred. Boss Mak looked at least a decade older than my mom, even though they’d have both been seventy. And yet here he was, being fussed over by this pretty, young woman, while what remained of my mother sat in an urn on the living room mantel of my childhood home.
The first dish arrived, a cold appetizer plate with crunchy jellyfish and thinly sliced marbled ham and fat nuggets of smoked goose. Then double-boiled sharks’ fin soup. Then abalone with baby bok choy, crispy fried grouper, lacquered slices of Peking duck, all accompanied by more wine, this time a red Bordeaux.
Kaiser Shih ensured my plate was always full, repeatedly asking if I was enjoying the food. In truth, every morsel was too greasy and overseasoned, crossing the line from decadent to debauched.
The police chief and the vice mayor told loud stories in Cantonese—which I tried in vain to follow—that ended in backslapping, wild guffaws. They debated the handicapping tip sheets for upcoming races at the Macau Jockey Club, where they all appeared to be members. Linlin stifled a yawn and excused herself to go to the bathroom, and I wished I could get up and follow. But what would I say to her? What could we possibly have in common besides both wishing to be elsewhere?
The waitress brought bowls of chilled honeydew sago and a platter of cut fruits (which I awkwardly declined). Linlin returned to the table with fresh lipstick, and I suspected she must have sat on the commode scrolling through her phone to pass the time. Once the men had finished their dessert, the vice mayor ordered a round of cognac, a glass of which they forced on me.
A toast, he said. To new partnerships and new profits!
Everyone shouted, Gan bei!
My head spun in sluggish circles. Each blink was a battle to raise my eyelids. The waitress entered clutching the leather check holder, and I straightened, momentarily buoyed by having had the foresight to hand my credit card to the maître d’ upon arrival.
But instead of bringing me the check, the waitress went to Boss Mak.
They know me here, he said, scrawling his name on the receipt. They’d never let you pay.
I told them Winnie had insisted.
Boss Lady can pay the next time she comes, said the police chief, whose skin tone by this point had darkened to maroon.
All at once I remembered the red envelopes I’d brought in my purse. I passed them out with both hands, saying, A small token from me and Fang Wenyi.
Boss Mak reached underneath the table and brought out an enormous shopping bag in that unmistakable shade of orange. And a present from us to you.
This, I hadn’t anticipated. I’d brought no other gifts and didn’t know what to do.
Open it, said the vice mayor.
Yes, urged Kaiser Shih and the police chief.
Even Linlin perked up.
The vice mayor asked the waitress to clear the dirty glasses, and she went one step further and laid clean white napkins over the soiled tablecloth. I set down the lightly grained orange box, undid the brown grosgrain ribbon, and folded back layers of white tissue.
A gasp escaped me. Nestled in the box was a rare crocodile Birkin 25, the color of merlot, of rubies, of blood. The men beamed at me, pleased with my astonishment. Linlin’s red-lacquered finger inched toward the bag. Boss Mak swatted her away.
I held the Birkin up to the chandelier. It seemed to pulse like a living, breathing thing. From every angle it appeared authentic, worth at least forty thousand dollars.
My vision blurred. I blinked a couple times. How did you get this?
Boss Mak said, I have a contact at the Zurich boutique. He winked. Even if ninety-nine percent of people can’t tell the difference between a real and a superfake, we can.
The bag was worth ten times the cash in all the red envelopes combined. That’s when I grasped just how determined Boss Mak was to join that transplant list. He smiled serenely at me, the very picture of a man who always got what he wanted.
Another toast, cried the vice mayor, who had at some point refilled our glasses. To friendships, old and new!
Gan bei, gan bei, gan bei!
After the cognac bottle had been emptied, we stood and gathered our things and rode the elevator to the ground floor. Linlin helped Boss Mak into the back of his Range Rover. I was scanning the parking lot for my driver when the police chief said, It’s not yet eleven, let’s hit the KTV lounge.
My eyes watered. I could have fallen asleep right there on the ground. I had to get up early to drive to Hong Kong for my grandma’s birthday. I said, I drank too much, I have jet lag, please, I can barely stand.
But they didn’t care. Kaiser Shih’s large hand clamped onto my wrist and pulled me along, saying he’d already texted my driver and sent him home. Someone pushed me into a roomy SUV, and I lay back, grateful for a place to rest my head.
Minutes later Kaiser Shih nudged me awake and guided me out of the car. A high-speed elevator spirited us skyward to a swanky lounge with sumptuous velvet couches and low mahogany tables scattered beneath fluorescent purple lights. The host led us to a private room with a pair of generous sofas facing a screen that filled the entire wall. Above our heads glinted a mini disco ball.
While the police chief passed out cigars, I went in search of the restroom and then to the bar for a double espresso, which the bemused bartender slid toward me. When I returned to the group, a waiter was setting down bottles of Dom Pérignon and Johnnie Walker Blue Label and yet another complimentary fruit platter. A treacly string intro filled the air, and the vice mayor sang tenderly about the lover who had walked out the door without so much as a glance. He had a pleasant baritone voice, warm and resonant, impossible to square with his coarse manners and loud clothes.
Halfway through the song, a gaggle of girls in identical black strapless sheaths with numbered tags pinned to their waists spilled through the door. Despite the heavy makeup, I could tell they were young, a few maybe even in their teens.
Out, out, the police chief said, waving his arms as if herding cattle.
Only karaoke tonight, said Kaiser Shih.
The girls sheepishly filed back through the door. The vice mayor kept singing without missing a beat.
The police chief exhaled a ring of cigar smoke and rolled his eyes. I already told them when we arrived, No girls.
Kaiser Shih handed me a glass of champagne, which I resolved not to drink, and said, Sorry about that.
I asked, What are the tags for?
He pretended not to understand the question.
The numbers. On the girls.
Oh, that. So you can request the girl you like. But I don’t know much about it, I only come to sing.
Is that how Boss Mak and Linlin met?
It was a sincere question, but Kaiser Shih snickered. Linlin has a college degree. She’d die if she heard you.
My headache surged back with a vengeance. I combed through my purse for the Advil bottle, before realizing I’d left it in the hotel room. I thought of the underage factory girls who longed to be waitresses who longed to be hostesses who longed to be mistresses of wealthy old men.
I really don’t feel well, I said to Kaiser Shih.
I must have looked deathly because instead of brushing it off, he put down his drink and said he’d call me a car.
The other two men were singing a duet with a swaying salsa beat. They waved and cheerfully told me, Take care, walk slowly, perhaps eager to call the girls back into the room.
Out on the sidewalk, I leaned against a pillar, clutching the orange shopping bag to my chest. When a blue sedan slowed, Kaiser Shih opened the passenger door.
I thanked him and shook his hand.
Until next time, he said.
My chest constricted. I ducked into the car and doubled over, slashed by the knowledge that I was, irrevocably, one of them now.
What other shady business dealings did these men have their hands in? Horse betting, casinos, perhaps other forms of counterfeits—electronics, pharmaceuticals, worse? Winnie had never voiced any interest in branching out from handbags, but I’d seen how impossible it was to walk away from a profit, how even the firmest moral boundaries could stretch and tear.
Like you, Detective, I often wonder what Winnie’s up to these days, whether she’s conjured some even more risky and lucrative scheme. And while that would certainly be the most predictable route, I like to imagine she’s once again thwarted our expectations, renounced her old ways, and retreated to a quiet beach town to live off her savings. In my fantasy she spends her days cooking, meditating, reading in the sun; she’d take a lover, make new friends. Yes, I know I just mentioned how difficult it is to give up a life of crime, but if anyone could overcome the odds, don’t you agree that it’s her?
For the last time, Detective, I’m only speculating here. I haven’t heard from her since the day she fled. I don’t know where she is. I have no clue. Seriously, what will it take to get you to stop asking me that?