When they were done with the driver, they stood him up on his feet and ignored the smell from his pants and made him drink five straight shots of whiskey at gunpoint. But in a congratulatory sort of way, with a slap on the back. You made it through the rain, pal. Nobody touched you, right? Not a goddamned hair on your head was hurt! The driver was hesitant at first, but by the third slug of whiskey he was enjoying himself again, even cracking a grin.
"We're going to drive you home," Jimmy told him, leading the man outside to the waiting car. Victor had seen this done before; the man's terror was quickly reduced by the drink, you dropped him off somewhere near his home, and if he spoke to anyone he barely made sense, then he fell asleep and when he woke up he felt weird and badly hung-over but realized he was unhurt—and usually decided that it was better not to mention his encounter to anyone of consequence.
Victor's phone rang. It was Violet.
"I got that address over on Seventy-eighth Street. Owner's name is Raymond E. Grant."
"Anybody know him?"
"Sure. He's easy to look up, and a man like you will be interested to know just who he is."
"Who?"
"A retired detective. Something like twenty-seven years as a detective. The red truck's in his name."
He said nothing.
"Victor? That's the kind of thing that worries me, you know?"
A detective. The younger guy named Ray had to be his son.
Victor would know soon enough.
"This is very brave,
very strong man." Zhao pointed his finger, as if talking to Jin Li in person, not on a cell phone. "He climbed down the rope very far and then climbed up, using just his arms."
Ray, Jin Li thought. Very few men were so strong. "What color was his truck?"
"It was red," Zhao answered. "A good truck, little bit old. I looked at it. He has funny yellow shoe on the dashboard."
"Like a tennis shoe but yellow?"
"Yes, that is exactly right."
Only a month earlier, she had been to Ray's house, sitting outside in that same truck while he went inside to check on his father. It'd been a warm day and she dangled her foot outside the window, feeling the sun. Maybe that was when she'd lost the shoe. She'd never gone in and met Ray's father, perhaps because she was afraid to do so.
"What do you think he was doing, Zhao?" Jin Li asked.
"Oh, I know what he was doing."
"Tell me."
"Looking for you."
"Why do you say that?" she said, testing him.
"Because a man only does something like that if he has a big heart, and you are the only person he knows in this company, so I think he does this for you. He has big heart for you, Jin Li."
So what if the cab from Harlem cost sixty dollars? She didn't care. But it took a while to get over the Brooklyn Bridge, and she looked anxiously out the window. Ray had called her and she had never called him back. Terrible. I think I made a big mistake, Jin Li told herself. I will make it better. He will see how much I missed him. We can talk to the police, maybe, to this Detective Blake. She had the cabby hunt around the neighborhood until she found the right street. The house had a green porch, she remembered, feeling excited. After circling a few blocks, she spotted the house.
"Keep the meter running," she told the cabby. "I forgot to do something."
"If you got the money," said the cabby, "I got the time."
She dug around in her purse and found some lipstick and a mirror. Her lips needed a little something. She fixed them, then kissed a tissue to get off the extra. She brushed her hair, put on just a little eyeliner, a touch of blush. Last, the perfume. She expected to kiss Ray—a lot, okay?
"Lady, you mind I say something?"
"No, I guess."
"Whoever he is, he's a lucky guy."
"Thanks."
"And I'm not just sayin' that for the tip."
She paid the man and got out.
Yes, this was the place, a two-story house with a sharply peaked roof and what Americans called dormer windows. She'd spent many hours looking at real estate ads, both in Shanghai and in New York. People forgot how much Western architecture was built in Shanghai before the Revolution. The Bund along the Whangpoo River was all monumental British, French, and German buildings, neoclassical, Art Deco. Anyway, this house had an enclosed porch, freshly painted. The grass and bushes looked neatly trimmed. Somebody was caring for the house, no doubt Ray, which had to mean he was still here, right? She
poked her head around the side of the house, saw a locked shed and a repainted birdhouse. Oh, I hope he is here! Jin Li told herself. She stepped up onto the porch and knocked tentatively. No answer. She noticed an ornamental chime in the center of the door and turned it. A bell sounded inside. A moment later, she could see a woman walk through the cluttered hallway.
"Yes, may I help you?" the woman asked from behind the door.
"I came to see Ray," Jin Li said.
The door opened. "He's in here," the woman said. She had a stethoscope around her neck. "Please."
The house was surprisingly warm for a spring day. Jin Li followed the woman into the living room, where an emaciated man of about seventy lay propped up against some pillows, arms at his sides, tubes going into both wrists.
"Oh, I'm sorry, so sorry," Jin Li protested, "I meant Ray Junior."
"He should be back soon," the nurse said.
She stopped where she stood, unwilling to intrude. In China, a sick person's privacy was never disturbed. "I—I don't—"
"Please stay," the nurse said. "Mr. Grant doesn't get too many visitors, and he certainly doesn't get any like you." The nurse smiled. "He's going to wake up any moment now."
"Are you sure?"
"He's a charmer, I better warn you."
So she sat on the couch, trying not to appear like she was waiting, trying not to be intrusive. She looked at Mr. Grant and then around the room, down the hall, anywhere she could. This was the house where Ray had grown up. Not at all luxurious by American standards and yet a very beautiful home as far as she was concerned, with nice wood floors and big, simple rooms. He was a boy
here,
she mused. So different from where I grew up.
"I think I am being given too many drugs," croaked a voice, Mr. Grant's, his eyes open now and studying her intently, with alarm, even. "If I am not mistaken, though I
could
be mistaken, I am looking at an exceptionally beautiful Chinese woman who has got to be the most beautiful woman, except for my wife, Mary, who has ever been in this
house in the last thirty-nine years, and let me tell you that is saying quite a lot!"
Jin Li stood up but wasn't sure she should go to the bed. He looked so sick, and smelled a little, too. "Oh, hello, excuse me, Mr. Grant, I am so sorry that I woke you up, I was hoping to come see Ray, your son. My name is Jin Li. I don't think that you know who—"
"Lady, I know I'm lying in my deathbed, but let me tell you something, I know exactly who you are!" Ray's father stole a look toward the kitchen. His eyes narrowed. "Please, I'm going to ask you . . . ," he said in a loud whisper, "she's in the bathroom maybe. Please go into the kitchen and get me a little coffee. It's usually on the stove. Wakes up my brain. Will you do it?"
She stood tentatively. She could, in fact, smell the coffee.
"That's the ticket. Quick, quick, though!" said Mr. Grant. "Just a little milk, no sugar."
She tiptoed into the kitchen. It was very dated by American standards, she saw. It looked like one in a television show she'd seen many times with the voices dubbed in Chinese, something called
The Brady Bunch.
She poured a little cup of coffee with milk she found in the refrigerator and brought it back.
"I know just who you are," said Mr. Grant when she returned.
"You do?"
"Of course . . . you're the girl my son is so worried about. Just terribly worried, doing everything he can to find you . . ." He took the coffee cup with both hands and took a sip. Then another. "Good," he pronounced. A machine next to Mr. Grant's side beeped, followed by a mechanical click. He turned toward it and licked his lips. "Sooner than I expected," he noted aloud. Then he nodded in satisfaction at something and returned his gaze toward Jin Li. Except this time his eyes barely blinked. Was he falling asleep? She could see he was about to drop his coffee and rushed to catch the cup before it spilled on his sheet. "Thank you . . ." he said, strangely. She set the cup down on the floor near her feet, out of sight of the nurse, if she came back.
Suddenly an idea came to her. "Mr. Grant? Can I ask you something?"
"Yes, I suppose you can."
"What did Ray do all of those years he was away from the United States?"
"Do?" The machine next to Mr. Grant clicked again but he did not seem to hear it.
"Yes. Did he work in the military, did he fight in a war?"
Mr. Grant frowned. "Did he tell you that?"
"No."
"I didn't think so . . . he did not tell you anything . . . right?"
How did he know this? She felt humiliated. "Yes, that's right."
"He was saving them . . . helping . . . hurricanes and earthshakes, I mean,
quakes . . .
hundred of people, many countries . . ." He closed his eyes, as if better to see what he was describing, and she watched his eyeballs moving to and fro beneath their lids, searching, maybe seeing. "Sometimes I read about it in the newspaper . . . terrible things he saw, much worse than anything I ever . . . saw too much, oh, you can see too much!" Mr. Grant lifted his face upward, his cheeks hollowed as he opened his mouth. "Never would talk about it, broke my heart, you see, I wish he would get . . . it's good for a man, to have a wife and children . . . sometimes he went down into . . . deep into, where all the dead people were . . . he was supposed to find the people, the children . . . very very difficult . . . sometimes . . . he . . . it . . . my garden, did you see the roses—?"
His head swayed, a man seeing only visions now. "Mr. Grant, how did Ray get the terrible scar on his stomach?"
"Aaah, ha—" He groaned horribly.
"Mr. Grant?"
"—that was . . . God gave it to him!"
His eyes opened, then rolled up in his head. A foul breath came from him, from deep within him. Then his head slumped to the side. One eye was nearly closed, the other open. Jin Li looked away. Why was she thinking of her grandfather? I must look at him, she thought, I must see this so that I understand Ray.
A minute passed, in silence. Mr. Grant's meager chest continued to rise and fall, and his features were slack now.
The nurse came back in, looking at her watch.
"Did you get a chance to talk?" she asked brightly.
Jin Li realized she was breathing quickly. "Yes."
"And you got a little coffee?"
"Yes."
"He's a very nice man." She lifted the sheet a bit to fix it and when she did so Jin Li saw the half-full urine bag. "He'll sleep now awhile."
"Maybe I should wait for Ray outside—?"
"Whatever you'd like."
Jin Li nodded affirmatively and stood, suddenly wanting to flee the room. But instead she bent down and ever so gently kissed Mr. Grant's forehead.
"You're sweet," said the nurse. "I'll tell him when he wakes up. And he'll like knowing it, too."
Jin Li slipped back down the hall, idly studying some of the family pictures. She hadn't noticed them when she came in. There was a picture of Ray in a football uniform, then another of him in a New York City fireman's uniform, getting a medal in his hospital bed. With his father and mother to either side. And a smiling, bald man whose face she recognized. Mayor Giuliani. "
FOR VALOROUS SERVICE TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
" read the gold-script caption.
Oh, she thought, oh. So he was
there.
She stepped out to the porch. Why hadn't he told her? How she wished she had known, how she missed Ray now—loved him, even. Everything—everything made
sense.
She wandered toward the sidewalk, a little dazed in the bright sun, wondering why she was crying. Perhaps the sight of Mr. Grant, the conversation about Ray, the pictures, it was all a little much . . .
Too much, in fact, to notice the battered service van that had pulled up next to the sidewalk. A large man in worn laborer's clothes stepped in front of her. His dark eyes fixed on her face.
"What, excuse me—!"
He grabbed her with one dirty hand, flung open the van door, and threw her inside. She hit her head on the metal floor. He reached in and took her purse. She glimpsed a piece of rope and an empty plastic
bucket. The door slammed shut, was locked from the outside, and the van lurched forward. She put out her hand to steady herself in the dark.
A sliding sound. The driver's narrow rear window opened into the van body. Behind a metal mesh, she could see the face. "Don't you fucking scream," he warned her.
The van drove a few more minutes. She felt for the side doors and the back door. Locked. Crawling in the darkness on her hands and knees she found the rope and plastic bucket, nothing else.