Whispering Shadows (22 page)

The telephone in Lamma rang and rang. Paul counted every ring and grew more and more uneasy. He hung up and tried again. Finally, he heard his friend's voice. Zhang sounded strained, as though he could barely breathe.

“Zhang, is everything all right?”

“Fine. I just lay down for a while. Where are you?”

Paul told him about his conversation with Pu.

“Do you know Diamond Villas?” he asked when he had finished sharing what he had learned from Pu.

“Yes, it's not far from Lake Silver, if I'm not wrong. It's one of the new settlements that have sprung up all over Shenzhen—Golden Dream, Honey Club, Rich Man's World, and so on—pretty expensive areas with big town houses and luxury apartments. Most of them are owned by civil servants and party officials from the north who invest their corruption money here. As far as I know, the rest of the property has been bought by businessmen from Singapore or Hong Kong for investment or for their mistresses.”

“Have you been there?”

“No. They all have private security guards so we don't have much to do there. They're surrounded by high walls and there are mostly strict checks on entry.”

“Sounds like a modern-day Forbidden City,” Paul said.

“For the new little emperors, yes, absolutely right.”

“Will I be able to get in?”

“You? You're a foreigner so should have no problem. Just put on an arrogant Don't-you-even-dare-speak-to-me-you-good-for-nothing-little-Chinese-security-guard expression and walk confidently past the guardhouse and you'll be left alone. Just don't peer in looking hesitant and unsure like you usually do. That will not be the right moment to look pensive or sensitive.”

“I'm glad you're back in the mood to annoy me.”

“Just a tip for my assistant detective,” Zhang said in jest. “Seriously, though, shouldn't I come with you?”

“No. If both of us turn up, it will only put the woman off. I think I played my role as Michael Owen's friend pretty well in front of Pu. Why shouldn't it work with Anyi too? Do you think someone's already told her that Michael is dead?

“I can't think who would have. And she would surely have told her friend about it.”

“That's right. There you see again what an amateur you're working with. I'll call you again tomorrow once I'm back in the hotel.”

It was an awful night. At first Paul could not get to sleep because the men in the next room, from what he could understand from the roaring, were having a party to celebrate signing a contract. Just when he had finally nodded off, a knock at the door woke him, and he opened it unsuspectingly to find a plump young woman in a kind of black leather bikini, holding tissues and a bottle of oil in her hands. She asked him if he wanted “room service.” It was 3:50
AM
.

During the hours that followed, he was much too keyed up to sleep properly. How should he introduce himself to Anyi? As a representative of the family, who was looking for the missing Michael? As a friend of Michael's, who was just stopping by to visit on the off chance he was home? He had to use his intuition to decide which role he should play, and that meant he would be ill prepared for any questions she might ask him. He lay dozing in bed till shortly after eight
AM
, had some cold, over-salted scrambled eggs for breakfast, and took a taxi to Diamond Villas.

After they had passed the entrance to the development, Paul
asked the driver to turn into the next side street and let him off.

The development was surrounded by a wall that was at least three meters high, with broken glass embedded into the top of the wall. There was an entry barrier with a small guardhouse next to it, in which two watchmen sat. Paul did not feel up to putting on a don't-you-even-dare-speak-to-me-you-good-for-nothing-little-Chinese-security-guard expression.

Paul walked along the whitewashed wall. Two big limousines came out of the exit and several women carrying shopping bags disappeared through the gate. He immediately realized his first mistake. Only domestic staff entered Diamond Villas on foot. Anyone who lived there drove air-conditioned cars in, of course. He was only a few steps away from the barrier. He straightened up, puffed his chest out, walked tall, ran his hand through his sweaty hair one more time, and did not even give the guardhouse a look. Let them dare to even speak to him or stop him.

They did not dare to.

Exhaling with relief, he walked up a long driveway, looking around him. At first glance, this development had nothing in common with the world beyond its gates. Its exclusiveness and isolation did indeed remind him of the Forbidden City. There was a tidy paved sidewalk and there was no rubbish on the streets. The grass between the paths was freshly mown and the buildings were well maintained. The complex consisted of eight high-rise buildings, each named after precious stones.

He asked one of the women with the shopping bags if she knew where Michael Owen lived. He received an uncomprehending stare in reply. He described Michael in a few sentences and she suddenly knew who he meant. The young American man lived on the top floor of the Sapphire building. Paul should go through the parking lot and take the elevator straight up to the penthouse. After a Porsche four-wheel drive shot out between a Ferrari and a Mercedes and nearly ran Paul over, he found the building.

The doorbell markers had numbers instead of names on them.
He pressed the button on top and waited.

“Hello?” said a stern female voice.

“I'm looking for Michael Owen.”

“He's not in. Who are you?”

“Paul Leibovitz, a friend of Michael's from Hong Kong.”

“Are you Chinese?”

“No, American.”

“Who are you?” she repeated, this time in heavily accented English, as though she was trying to find out if he was really a foreigner by testing his accent.

“My name is Paul Leibovitz, and I'm a friend of Michael's and the Owen family. I have to speak to you urgently,” he replied slowly in English, pronouncing each word very clearly.

There was silence for a long moment, then there was a light buzzing noise and the door opened.

She was waiting for him at the elevator. Paul recognized her face immediately, though she was far more beautiful in person than in the photos. Her features were more delicate and her skin was paler. With her high cheekbones, dark-brown almond-shaped eyes, and generous bee-stung lips, she was the very cliché of Chinese beauty. She was surprisingly tall and slim, but not scrawny, her hair was piled in a topknot fastened with a chopstick, and she was wearing baggy gray jogging pants and a sweatshirt with NYU printed on it.

She sized him up in one glance with suspicious eyes and then stepped aside without saying a word. Paul walked past her into the apartment. She closed the door behind him and led him into the living room.

The room was bright. It had a wall of windows opening out onto a balcony, from which the view stretched over the water reservoir to the hills beyond it. There was a black leather couch against the wall and a small oval table in front of it with a plastic flower arrangement on it; there was a large flat-screen TV opposite. On the other side of the room was a kitchen area with a breakfast bar and four stools. Anyi sat down on one of the stools, folded her arms over her chest,
and said, in Mandarin once again, “I didn't catch your name.”

“Paul Leibovitz.”

“What do you want from me?” she asked in a brusque tone.

“I'm looking for Michael Owen.”

“Who sent you?”

Paul said nothing. He wondered if she was really as brisk and confident as she appeared to be or if she was behaving like this just to hide her fear and insecurity.

“His mother. She's worried.”

“Are you with the police?”

“No. I'm a friend of the family.”

She cast him another suspicious look. This was no relaxed chat over a massage that Paul could bluff his way through. The two people sitting here were circling each other warily, exercising great caution, waiting for a sign of weakness from the other. He had no idea if he ought to assume a more forceful manner or if he should try to win her trust with a more sensitive approach. She did not appear to be the kind of person who was easily intimidated, nor did she seem like someone who was quick to trust others. And she was certainly not, as Zhang had surmised from seeing the photos of her, one of those karaoke bar ladies. The young women who worked there, hoping that one of their rich clients would take them as a mistress, were mostly migrant workers. They streamed into the city and worked initially in factories. The most attractive among them would eventually start working in disproportionately better-paid club or bar jobs. For the most part, these girls came from villages and small towns and were too frightened and shy to get involved with a foreigner. Anyi's story was different. Her tone, her body language, and her gestures impressed Paul, even though the ambition and confidence that they expressed were unfamiliar to him.

“May I sit down?”

Anyi did not say anything, but nodded slightly.

Paul took a seat on the couch.

“Do you know where Michael is?” he asked.

“I thought he was in Hong Kong.”

“He's not there.”

“And not here either,” she said coolly.

“Perhaps he's in Shanghai?”

She stared at him with a cold, calculating look almost devoid of emotion.

Anyi shook her head.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Paul asked.

She shook her head again.

“When was the last time you spoke to him on the phone?”

Silence.

“Is it usual for you not to hear from him for days?” His voice had sharpened involuntarily. Her silence was annoying him. “Aren't you at all worried? Something could have happened to him.”

A tremble of her lower lip betrayed her. She was not keeping silent out of defiance or ignorance. She was silent because she was frightened the next sentence would make her lose control of herself.

“Maybe he needs your help.”

That was one sentence too many. The young woman slid off the stool as violently as if someone had pushed her from behind and ran into another room. He heard her sobbing through the open door.

Paul wished Zhang were with him. He had no idea what he should do. He was not a police detective. An experienced officer would probably press the point now, take advantage of the weakness, increase the pressure by making just the right remark in order to get the woman to talk. He could not do that. He felt sorry for Anyi; his instinctive reaction to someone who was crying was to offer them help, and he followed his instincts. He got up and went into the next room, where Anyi was lying on the bed with her face buried in a pillow. He sat down next to her and stroked her head.

She allowed him to carry on. He looked around the bedroom as she collected herself. A large Mickey Mouse plush toy was propped against the head of the bed with a pink heart-shaped pillow next
to it. There was another flat-screen television on the wall opposite and a desk with a computer on it in the corner. There were several intermediate English language course books on the floor.

When she had stopped crying, Paul asked, “How long have you known Michael?”

She turned her head toward him, wiped the tears from her face with a pillowcase, and said, “Almost exactly one year.”

“Are you learning English for him?”

“Yes. He doesn't speak much Chinese. And we want to go back to America later.”

“And you're preparing for it by sleeping with Mickey Mouse and wearing NYU sweatshirts?”

“Yes,” she said, a brief smile flitting across her face.

“Where do you want to live in America?”

“Hopefully, in New York, if everything with the new company works out the way Michael plans.”

“I grew up there.” Paul hoped that this information would relax her a little and make her ask more questions, but Anyi had fallen silent again.

“Where are you from?” Paul asked after a pause.

“From Shenyang. It's north of Beijing, in Manchuria.”

“I know.”

“Have you been there?”

“Many times.” In the early 1990s Paul had been a consultant for a large American brewery that had wanted to buy a state-owned enterprise in Shenyang, and he had traveled to the city often in the course of the negotiations. He remembered clear, deep-blue skies and terribly cold winter days, when the maximum temperature was below minus four degrees Fahrenheit.

Anyi was impressed by the fact that he knew her hometown. She smiled at him again, this time, it seemed to him, for a longer time and more warmly. She sat up, reached for a paper tissue from the bedside table, and blew her nose.

“You speak good Mandarin. Almost like a Chinese person.
Amazing.”

“Thank you. I've lived in Hong Kong for thirty years and have traveled through China a lot. Do you speak Cantonese?”

She shook her head.

“What brought you from Shenyang to Shenzhen?”

“I thought you were familiar with China,” she said, pushing a few strands of hair away from her face.

Paul could clearly detect the disappointment in her voice. She had not expected such a stupid question from him.

“Where are you from?”

“I was born in Germany and grew up in New York.”

“And have lived in Hong Kong for thirty years. Why?”

He was not sure if she expected an answer. Why did people leave their families, their home countries, the places where they were born? He had not asked himself these questions for a long time. They had occupied him a great deal before, but he had never found a conclusive answer to them. A desire for adventure and an urge for freedom, he had used to say in answer to similar questions from strangers, receiving understanding nods, and he had marveled anew at how easy it was to stifle any conversation with the right words. How little people really listened or probed. So he had never had to tell them about the loneliness of the outsider or about the distance he had felt lay between him and his parents even as a child, one that was much easier to bear when it could be measured in miles.