When the Jaguar pulled up outside Qi Jing’s high-fashion clothes shop, she was in the window, adjusting the leather jacket on a shop dummy. He crossed the pavement and pushed the door open. Though he was sure she had seen him approaching, she didn’t look round.
“You’ve been ignoring my calls,” he said.
She stepped out of the window and onto the shop floor. “What were you calling about?” She seemed cold, indifferent. Her face looked stiff.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“I’m doing fine.”
Qi Jing’s assistant appeared from a back room with a number of silk scarves. Qi Jing asked her to leave them on the counter and take a half-hour break. She needed some time alone with her brother, she said.
When the young woman had left the shop, Qi Jing turned the sign on the door so it would read CLOSED to anyone who might be standing on the pavement, then she swung round.
“Was it your idea to set me up with Laser?”
He shook his head. Sometimes she was more perceptive than he gave her credit for. “Why?” he said. “Didn’t you like him?”
“That’s not the point.”
“In the text you sent me you seemed to like him. You said he was cute.”
“You set me up. You manipulated me.”
“I had no idea you’d sleep with him. All I did was ask you to come out for a drink.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He shrugged, then began to look through the dresses hanging on a clothes rail by the wall. He might find a gift for Naemi.
“Did you hear what I said?”
He looked round.
Qi Jing was standing in the middle of the shop, her feet apart, her left hand on her hip with the thumb pointing forwards. This was something she did when she was in a rage. The hand on the hip. The thumb. She had done it even as a child.
“How dare you fuck with my life?”
Her fury was intense and colorless, like the sun concentrated into a small hot circle on a piece of paper by a magnifying glass.
“You not only set me up with your drummer,” she went on. “You also sabotaged my relationship with Chu En Li.”
Zhang affected a blank look.
“You had him sent to the Philippines, didn’t you.” She came and stood in front of him, her flushed face close to his. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Oddly enough—and even though Qi Jing’s accusations were wholly justified—her anger sparked a corresponding anger in him. “I’ve got more important things to think about,” he said, “than some affair you were having that didn’t work out.”
“Oh really?” Her tone was withering. “Like what?”
“A friend of mine’s gone missing.” He saw something shift in her. He had caught her off guard. “You met him the other night, in the bar.”
“The old man, you mean?”
He nodded. “No one’s seen him in three days.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked at the floor, then lifted her eyes to him again. “But that doesn’t change how I feel.”
He moved to the door of the shop and peered out. The fog still hadn’t lifted. He could see his Jaguar parked on the street, Chun Tao with his earbuds in, listening to music.
“I know it was you,” Qi Jing was saying. “Chu En Li told me. You’re friends with his boss, apparently. He saw you together.”
In the noodle place, Zhang thought. In Yangpu district.
He turned to face his sister again. Some of her fury had burned off, leaving a residue of bitterness or scorn. “Chu En Li,” he said. “Was he the one you were with in that bar on the Bund?”
“What do you think?”
“The way he behaved that night.” He let out a laugh that was dismissive, contemptuous. “He seemed to think he was some kind of gangster.”
“Maybe you should be worried then.”
He stared at his sister. “Why should I be worried?”
She gave him a look that was provocative, almost flirtatious, then she pushed past him and opened the door.
“I’d like you to go now,” she said.
“What have I got to be worried about?”
“Just go.”
He sighed and shook his head and then he left.
* * *
—
That evening, on his way back from a dinner with Sebastian, Zhang called Johnny Yu.
“How’s the head?” he asked.
“I went to the hospital,” Johnny said. “Five stitches.”
“And the apartment?”
“I had to buy a new kitchen door, and new glass for one of the windows. She broke a lamp. The TV too. All in all, it cost me close to 15,000 RMB.”
“Expensive argument.”
“She’s fiery, but you know…” Johnny paused. “It has its advantages.”
“There’s something I need you to do,” Zhang said.
“What is it this time?” Johnny said. “Something else that’s beneath me?”
Zhang smiled. “Can you meet me at the Dark Horse tomorrow afternoon?”
“I could meet you now, if you like.”
“No,” Zhang said. “It’s been a long day. I need to get to bed.”
“Who are the companions sitting alone at the bright window? / I and my shadow—the two of us.” Johnny paused again. “Hsiang Kao. A minor writer, of whose life nothing is known.”
“Good night, Johnny.”
For once, the lines Johnny had quoted had spoken to him directly. It was Golden Week, and he could have been in London with Naemi, but she had told him she was busy, so here he was in Shanghai, on his own…He called his wife’s number. She didn’t answer. He called his son, Hai Long, but he didn’t pick up either. It was late, and they were probably asleep. Or perhaps they had gone away, like everybody else.
Up ahead, he could see the mouth of the Dalian Road Tunnel.
He leaned his head against the headrest. White lights slid up the windscreen, then a metal grille clanged twice beneath the wheels, and they emerged into the wide, empty avenues of Pudong.
* * *
—