“I playfully sniff and finger the plum blossom,” he said, “and there, at the branch tip, is all the fullness of Spring!” He turned to Zhang with a sly grin. “Author unknown.”
Zhang sighed. “What have you got for me?”
Johnny took out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to Zhang. “Everything you asked for—and more.”
Zhang began to read.
Her name was Naemi Vieno Kuusela, and she had been born on September 19, 1979. He smiled. All those nines. In China, it was considered a good omen, since the word for “nine” sounded like the word for “everlasting.” But she had lied about her age—or rather, she had allowed him to think she was twenty-four when in fact she was already in her early thirties. She worked for Art Island, a prestigious gallery housed in the complex on Moganshan Road, where her principal role was artist liaison. She lived alone on the seventh floor of the Embankment Building on Suzhou North Road. Apartment 710. Zhang knew the place. It was popular with foreigners, especially those who were looking for history and atmosphere. The monthly rent on a decent-sized apartment with a view of downtown would be somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 RMB. Either Naemi was being paid a generous salary or she had money of her own. Included with her home address and the address of the gallery were two e-mail addresses and a phone number. As Zhang scanned the sheet of paper for a second time, he was aware of the girl bringing Johnny his beer and Johnny staring at her, as before.
“Anything missing?” Johnny spoke with the cockiness of someone who already knows the answer to his question.
“Not a thing,” Zhang said, folding the sheet of paper and slipping it into his pocket, “though I can’t say I’m entirely happy.”
Johnny’s beer bottle hung in the air, halfway to his mouth. His smirk was gone.
“You were seen,” Zhang said, “in your green suit. You were seen twice.”
Johnny put down his drink. Eyes lowered, he seemed to be peering into the neck of the bottle. “I did the job,” he muttered. “I got results.”
“She saw you, Johnny.”
“There’s no way she could connect us.”
“Why in that case would she mention it to me? Why would she ask if I was spying on her?”
“I’m sorry, boss.”
Zhang took out an envelope and placed it on the table between them. “Be more careful in future, otherwise I won’t be able to use you.”
Eyeing the envelope, Johnny nodded.
“And don’t get any ideas about the waitress,” Zhang added.
Johnny looked at him. “I didn’t know you were—”
“I’m not.”
“So what’s it to you if I take a crack at her?”
“She deserves better.”
“She’s only a bar girl.”
“Get out of here,” Zhang said, “before I lose my patience.”
Apologizing again, Johnny picked up the envelope and tucked it into his jacket pocket, each movement deliberate, almost labored, as if to counter the impression that he was being summarily dismissed, then he stood up and drained his bottle of beer. After sending one swift, hunted look in the girl’s direction, he turned and left the bar. She watched him go with blank, uninterested eyes.
Zhang parted the wooden blinds on the window. On the pavement below, Johnny glanced left and right, like someone trying to decide what to do next. In the yellow neon light his bronze-colored suit looked charred. I playfully sniff and finger the plum blossom…Shaking his head, Zhang finished his drink and walked up to the bar.
The girl smiled at him. “Would you like another?”
“No. Just the check.”
“I already told you what my life is like,” she said. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me a little about yours.”
“Maybe,” he said.
* * *
—
Back in his apartment, Zhang couldn’t seem to settle. He poured himself a tumbler of bourbon and took his twelve-string acoustic guitar out of its case. Sitting on the sofa, facing out into the night, he began to play a basic instrumental blues. Gradually, words came to him. It was dusk, and he was in the country. The smell of mud and leaves. Then he heard a soft roaring sound, like a gust of wind, but the air was still and the trees weren’t moving. He turned around. A woman stood behind him, on the path. She was the woman he loved. He scarcely recognized her, though, since all her hair was gone and her teeth and fingernails were black. He used the line the small man in the pale blue suit had used: Fear rushed through me. In less than half an hour, the song was done. He called Mad Dog and played it to him on the speakerphone. When he finished, there was silence. He could hear a child crying in the background. Ling Ling’s daughter.
He asked Mad Dog what he thought.
“What I told you at lunchtime the other day seems to have had quite an effect on you,” Mad Dog said.
“It’s not just about that,” Zhang said. “I’m drawing on all sorts of things.”
Mad Dog let out a small, derisory chuckle. “In any case, you’re probably right to be afraid.”
“You think the song’s about Naemi?”
“Don’t you?”
Zhang played a minor chord, but didn’t speak.
“That night at Yu Yin Tang,” Mad Dog went on, “when I sat with her on the terrace, I wasn’t imagining things.”
Putting his guitar aside, Zhang picked up the phone and moved out onto the terrace. The night was humid and musty. He had the uncanny feeling, suddenly, that the city that lay before him was a huge, dark lake in which all kinds of mysterious objects were floating. “What are you saying?”
“She’s a ghost.”
Zhang’s laughter was brief, incredulous. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”
“Believe what you like.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mad Dog said. “She seems as real as you or me. And she’s beautiful, of course. You’re probably besotted with her. That’s all entirely predictable—”
Zhang tried to interrupt, but his friend talked over him.
“In the Chinese imagination, ghosts have always been closely associated with sex, and that’s particularly true of female ghosts. When they appear, they tend to appear in an erotic context. They’re seductive. Irresistible. They lure you in. What you see is what you want to see. But it’s not the truth. It’s an illusion.”