For The Win (63 page)

"Now what?" he whispered, trying not to move his mouth.

"How were you going to get out of here?" she said.

His stomach tightened. "I hadn't really thought about it much," he said.

She hissed in frustration. "You must have had some idea. How about the way you got in?"

He hadn't told anyone the details of his transoceanic voyage. It would have felt weird to admit that he was part owner of a giant shipping company. Besides, he didn't really
feel
like it was his. It was his father's.

Two policemen passed by, grim-faced, moving quickly, an urgent, insectile buzz coming from their earpieces.

"Really?"

"If we could get into the port," he said. "I think I could get us anywhere."

She smiled, and it was the first real smile he'd seen on her face since -- since before the shooting had started.

"But I need to call my mother."

#

The policemen that questioned Matthew were so tense they practically vibrated, but the tourist lady put on a big show of being offended that they were being stopped and demanded that they be allowed to go, practically shouting in English. Matthew translated every word, speaking over the policemen as they tried to ask him more questions about how he'd come to be there and what had happened to get his clothes so dirty with paint and mud.

The tourist lady took out her camera and aimed it at the policemen, and that ended the friendly discussion. Before she could bring the screen up to her face, a policeman's gloved hand had closed around the lens. The two boys moved forward and it looked like someone would start shoving soon, and the man was shouting in English, and all the noise was enough to attract the attention of an officer who gave the cops a blistering tongue lashing for wasting everyone's time and waved them on with a stern gesture.

Matthew could hardly believe he was free. The tourists seemed to think it was all a game as he urged them down the road a way, out of range of the police cordon and away from the shouting. They walked up the shoulder of the Shenhui Highway, staying right on the edge as huge trucks blew past them so fast it sucked the breath out of their lungs.

"Taxi?" the woman asked him.

He shook his head. "I no think taxi today," he said. "Private car, maybe."

She seemed to understand. He began to wave at every car that passed them by, and eventually one stopped, a Chang’an sedan that had seen better days, its trunk held shut with a bungee cord that allowed the lid to bang as the car rolled to a stop. It was driven by a man in a dirty chauffeur's uniform. Matthew leaned in and said, "100 RMB to take us to Jiabin Road." It was high, but he was sure the tourists could afford it.

"No, too far," the man said. "I have another job --"

"200," Matthew said.

The man grinned, showing a mouthfull of steel teeth. "OK, everyone in."

They were on the road for a mere five minutes before his phone chirped to let him know that he had voicemail waiting for him. It was Justbob, from Big Sister Nor.

#

"Mom?"

"Lawrence?"

"Hi, Mom." He tried to ignore Jie who was looking at him with an expression of mingled hilarity and awe. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of gamer cafes with private rooms, and had brought them to this one in the ground floor of a youth hostel that catered to foreigners and had a room set off for karaoke and net-access.

"It's been so long since I've heard your voice, Lawrence."

"I know, Mom."

"How's your trip?"

"Um, fine." He tried to remember where he told her he'd be. Portland? San Francisco?

"Oh, Lawrence," she said, and he heard that she was crying. It was what, 8PM back in LA, and she was crying and alone. He felt so homesick at that moment he thought he would split in two and he felt the tears running down his own cheeks.

"I love you, Mom," he blubbered.

And they both cried for a long time, and when he risked a look at Jie, she was crying too.

"Mom," he said, choking back snot. "I have a favor to ask of you. A big favor."

"You're in trouble."

"Yes." There was no point in denying it. "I'm in trouble. And I can't explain it right now."

"You're in China, aren't you?"

He didn't know what to say. "You knew."

"I suspected. It's that gamer thing, isn't it? I did the math on when you answered my messages, when you called."

"You knew?"

"I'm not stupid, Lawrence." She wasn't crying anymore. "I thought I knew, but I didn't want to say anything until you told me."

"I'm sorry, Mom."

She didn't say anything.

"Are you coming home?"

He looked at Jie. "I don't know. Eventually. I have something I have to do here, first."

"And you need my help with that."

"Mom, I need to you order a shipment from Shenzhen to Mumbai." Big Sister Nor had suggested it, and Jie had shrugged and said that it was fine with her, one place was as good as any other. "I'll give you the container number. And you have to have Mr Alford call the port authority here and tell them that I'm authorized to access it."

"No, Leonard. I'll call the embassy, I'll get you home, but this is --" He could picture her hand flapping around her head. "It's crazy, is what it is."

"Mom --"

"No."

"Mom,
listen
. This is about a lot more than just me. There are people here, friends, whose lives are at stake. You can call the embassy all you want but I won't go there. If you don't help me, I'll have to do this on my own, and I have to be honest with you, Mom, I don't think I'll be able to do it. But I can't abandon my friends."

She was crying again.

"I'm going to be at the port in --" he checked the screen of his phone -- "in three hours. I've got my passport with me, that'll get me inside,
if
you've got it squared away with the port authority. The container number is WENU432134. It's at the western port. Do you have that?"

"Leonard, I won't do it."

"WENU432134," he said, very slowly, and hung up.

#

There were five of them in all. Matthew, Jie, Wing, Shirong, and Wei-Dong. They'd stopped at a 7-11 on the way to the train station and bought as much food as they could carry, asking the bemused clerk to pack it in boxes and seal them with packing tape.

As they approached the port, they stopped talking, walking slowly and deliberately. Wei-Dong steeled himself and walked to the guard's booth. He hadn't called his mother back. There hadn't been time. Shenzhen was in chaos, police-checks and demonstrations everywhere, some riots, spirals of black smoke heading into the sky.

He motioned for Wing to join him. They had agreed that he would play interpreter, to make Wei-Dong seem like more of a hopeless gweilo, above suspicion. They'd found him some cheap fake Chinese Nike gear to wear, a ridiculous track suit that reminded him of the Russian gangsters he'd see around Santee Alley.

Wordlessly, he handed his passport -- his real passport, held safely all this time -- to the young man on the gate. "WENU432134," he said. "Goldberg Logistics container."

He waited for Wing to translate, watched him sketch out the English letters on his palm.

The security guard looked over his shoulder at the two policemen in the booth with him. He picked up a scratched tablet and prodded at it with a blunt finger, squinting at Wei-Dong's passport. Wei-Dong hoped that he wouldn't try something clever, like riffling its pages looking for a Chinese visa.

He began to shake his head, said "I don't see it --"

Wei-Dong felt sweat run down his butt-crack and over his thighs. He craned his neck to see the screen. There it was, but the number had been entered wrong, WENU432144. He pointed to it and said, "Tell him that this is the one." He sent a silent thanks to his mother. The guard compared the number to the one he'd entered and then seemed about to let them pass. Then one of the policeman said, "Wait."

The cop shouldered the security guard out of the way, took the passport from him, examined it closely, holding a page up to the light to see the watermark. "What are you bringing?"

Wei-Dong waited for Wing to translate.

"Samples," he said. "Clothes."

He opened up the box at his feet and pulled out a folded tee-shirt emblazoned with some Chinese characters that said "I'm stupid enough to think that this shirt looks cool." Jie had found them from one of the few stubborn peddlers left on the street outside of the Metro entrance near the train station. The cop snorted and said, "Does he know what this says?"

Wing nodded. "Yes," he said. "But he thinks that other Americans won't. If they like it, they will order twenty thousand from us!" He laughed, and after a moment, the cop and the security guard joined in. The cop slapped Wei-Dong on the shoulder and Wei-Dong forced a laugh out as well.

"OK," the cop said, handing back his papers. The security guard gave them directions. "But you'll have to use the north gate to leave. We're closing this one for the evening in half an hour."

Wing made a show of translating for Wei-Dong, who had the presence of mind to pretend to listen, but he was rocking on his heels, almost at the point of collapse from lack of sleep and food.

They walked in total silence to the container, and Wei-Dong managed to only look over his shoulder once. Jie caught his eye when he did and waggled a finger at him. He smiled wryly and looked ahead, following the directions.

The container was just as he'd left it, and his key fit the padlock. The four marvelled at the cleverness of his work inside as they efficiently unpacked their food.

"Three nights, huh?" said Jie, as he pulled the door shut behind them.

"After they load us."

"When will that be?"

He sighed. "I need to call my mother to find out." He pulled out his phone and Jie handed him her last SIM and a calling card.

#

Big Sister Nor, The Mighty Krang and Justbob had no warning this time. Three men, small-time crooks working on contract for a man in Dongguan who owned one of the big gold-exchanges, worked silently and efficiently. They followed Justbob back from a Malaysian satay restaurant that they were known to frequent, back to the latest safe-house, a room over a massage-parlor on Changi Road, where the Webblies could tap into the wireless from a nearby office building. They waited patiently outside for all the windows to go dark.

Then they methodically attached bicycle locks to each doorway. It was nearly 5AM and the few passers-by paid them no particular attention. Once they had locked each door, they hurled petrol bombs through windows on the ground floor. They stayed just long enough to make sure that the fires were burning cheerily before they got into two cars parked around the corner and sped off. The next morning, they crossed into Kuala Lumpur and did not return to Singapore for eight months, drawing a small salary from the man in Dongguan while they laid low.

Big Sister Nor was the first one awake, roused by the sound of three windows smashing in close succession. She smelled the greasy smoke a moment later and began to shout, in her loudest voice, "Fire! Fire!" just as she had practiced in a thousand dreams.

Justbob and The Mighty Krang were up an instant later. Justbob went to the stairs and ventured halfway down toward the massage-parlor before the flames forced her up again. The Mighty Krang broke out the window with a chair -- it had been painted shut -- and leaned way out, far enough to see the lock that had been added to the door. He breathlessly but calmly reported this to Big Sister Nor, who had already popped the drives out of their control machines. She handed them to him, listened to Justbob's assessment of the staircase and nodded.

They could hear the screams from the floor below them as the girls from the massage parlor broke out their own windows and called for help. A girl emerged, legs first, from one of the massage parlor's small, high windows. She was screaming, on fire, rolling on the ground. A few people were in the street below, talking into their phones -- the fire department would be here soon. It wouldn't be soon enough. Choking smoke was already filling the room, and they were forced to their knees.

"Out the window," Big Sister Nor gasped. "You'll probably break a leg, but that's better than staying here."

"You first," The Mighty Krang said.

"Me last," she said, in a voice that brooked no argument. "After you two are out." She managed a small smile. "Try to catch me, OK?"

Justbob grabbed The Mighty Krang's arm and pulled him toward the window. He got as far as the sill, then balked. "Too far!" he said, dropping back to his belly. Justbob gave him a withering look, then hauled herself over the sill, dropped so she was hanging by her arms, then allowed herself to drop the rest of the way. If she made a sound, it was lost in the roar of the flames that were just outside the door now. The floor was too hot to touch.

"GO!" Big Sister Nor said.

"You're our leader, our Big Sister Nor," he said, and grabbed her arm. "We're all nothing without you!" She shook his hand off.

"No, you idiot," she said. "I am nothing more than the switchboard. You all lead yourselves. Remember that!" She grabbed the waistband of his jeans, just over his butt, and practically threw him out the window. The air whistled past him for an instant, and then there was a tremendous, jarring impact, and then blackness.

Big Sister Nor was on fire, her loose Indian cotton trousers, her long black hair. The room was all smoke now, and every breath was fire, too. She smelled her own nose-hairs singe as a breath of scalding air passed into her lungs, which froze and refused to work anymore. She stood and took one step to the window, standing for a moment like a flaming avatar of some tragic god in the window before she faltered, went down on one knee, then the flames engulfed her.

And below, the crowd on the street began to cry. Justbob cried too, from the pavement where she was being tended by a passerby who knew some first aid and was applying pressure to the ruin of her left leg. The Mighty Krang was unconscious, with a broken arm and three broken ribs.

But he remembered what Big Sister Nor told him, and he wrote those words down, typing them with his left hand in English, Malay, Hindi and Chinese, recording them with his smoke-ruined voice from his hospital bed.