On reaching the hotel’s reception desk, he picked up a key to the suite he had reserved, then he transferred to the lift that would take him to the bar. A jazz band was playing when he walked in. The singer was a young black woman in a yellow dress. He scanned the people sitting at the tables. Naemi had not arrived as yet. In his mind he saw her passing Wang Jun Wei in the dim, clandestine lobby, ninety-two floors down.
He found a table for two and ordered a glass of champagne. There’s something I need your help with. He knew what that meant. Jun Wei wanted to rope him into some business deal or other. At school, they had been in the same class. Jun Wei was lazy and delinquent, and Zhang used to help him with his homework. When Jun Wei was suspected of cheating, Zhang had vouched for him. Without Zhang, Jun Wei would never have graduated. Brothers, Jun Wei had said at the time, draping one heavy arm round Zhang’s shoulders. Brothers for life. Even back then, Zhang wondered what he had let himself in for. When he went to Canada to study, he lost touch with Jun Wei. In the early 2000s, though, after a gap of many years, the two men met up again in Shanghai. Now a wealthy and successful property developer, Jun Wei had consulted Zhang on various construction projects that he was pushing through. These days, he was in charge of a whole platform of companies, not all of which were necessarily legitimate, and Zhang had been careful to minimize his involvement.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Zhang glanced up.
Naemi was standing in front of him. She had changed, though she was still dressed in black. On her feet she wore a pair of chrome-colored Converse All Stars.
“I just arrived.” He gestured at his drink, which he had yet to touch. “Have a seat. What can I get you?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
He stopped a passing waitress and ordered another glass of champagne. Turning back to Naemi, he watched her slip her phone into her pocket. He found that he couldn’t conceive of who her contacts might be, or what her browsing history might look like. When he imagined accessing her phone, it was empty, blank. Nothing there at all. That was a quality she seemed to have, of being brand-new, as if she had come into being at that very moment, fully formed.
“How was dinner?” she asked.
“It was just business,” he told her. “If I hadn’t known I was meeting you afterwards, I might never have got through it.”
Her champagne arrived, and they touched glasses.
“You don’t seem like the kind of man who would go in for compliments,” she said.
“I don’t?”
She shook her head.
“What kind of man am I, then, do you think?”
“You’re asking me to guess?”
“Why not?”
She put down her glass. “I detect a sense of entitlement,” she said. “As if you were—how do you say it in Chinese?—born with a golden key in your mouth.”
He smiled. “Very good.”
“You’re used to getting what you want,” she went on. “You’re not spoiled, though.” Sitting back, she looked at him steadily. “Your job doesn’t fulfill you. There’s more to you than that.”
“I didn’t realize I was so transparent.” He drank a little champagne. “I have something for you.” Taking out the key to the hotel suite, he placed it on the table in front of her.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Who knows? Maybe it’s the golden key.”
Still watching him, she reached for her drink again.
“I booked you a room,” he said. “I thought you might find it relaxing. It might make a change—from where you live.”
“You don’t know where I live.”
He cast a light, theatrical look around the bar. “Is it like this?”
“I didn’t bring my toothbrush,” she said.
“Call room service,” he said. “Housekeeping.”
Leaving the key where it was, she looked away from him. For a while, she watched the band, who were playing a cover of the Sarah Vaughan classic “Whatever Lola Wants.” When the song ended, she turned back to him.
“You were in the museum,” she said, “even though it was closed.”
“That’s right.”
“You don’t work there, do you?” He laughed. “No. But I might be more fulfilled, as you put it, if I did.”
“So what were you doing?”
“I can’t tell you.” He finished his champagne. “I’ve never told anyone. Secrets lose their power if you share them.”
In that moment, there was a dark and oddly covetous aspect to the look she gave him. Perhaps, without knowing it, he had passed some sort of test. She reached for the key.
“It’s not a room, actually,” he said. “It’s a suite.”
“Would you show me?”
“Of course.” He signaled for the check.
Once he had paid, he followed her between the tables. Her black skirt clung to her hips. Her legs were bare. Something fizzed and crackled through him, a fork of lightning that zigzagged from his heart down to his belly. The set had ended, and everyone was clapping.
Near the lifts that were reserved for hotel guests was a wall of soft white lights, like snowflakes trapped under glass. She stood against it, backlit and in shadow, her hands behind her.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said.
She looked down and smiled, her hair falling across her face. She used the spread fingers of one hand to push it back.
Once inside the lift, he pressed 88. He was aware of the shaft beneath them—the tall column of dark air, the smell of oil and warm dust, the long drop to the ground.
The lift door opened.
They walked along a dimly lit taupe-colored corridor, a huge red abstract painting on the left-hand wall. There was no noise from the other rooms. It was as if they were under a bell jar, or in a vacuum. Cut off from the world. He thought this was something she might appreciate.
When she unlocked the double doors that led to 8801, they opened onto a small rectangular area of artificial grass. Arranged on this fake lawn were three gray-and-white ceramic animals with big, pointed ears. The sculptures resembled rabbits crossed with cats. All three had their eyes turned soulfully towards the ceiling.
“Oh.” She laughed softly.
To the right was a living room with chrome-and-leather furniture that looked Milanese and a long window framing neon-tinted clouds. There was a kitchen too, he had been told. Even a dining area. He followed her into the bedroom, choosing to leave the lights off. Two king-sized beds faced another long window. As they entered, the clouds swirled and thinned, revealing the top of the Jinmao Tower. It was closer than he had imagined it would be, its steel-gray turrets and crenellations tapering to a long needle, like part of some immense and dangerous machine.