Ho Lin

Ghost Month (Conclusion)

Oh, Mr. Wang’s daughter says. Sorry. Excuse me --

He cannot respond; his mouth has gone slack. She cannot possibly see what he sees on the monitor, and yet the girl on the screen continues to groan almost mournfully, the hotel bed squeaking in short little bursts, like mice lined up in a row.

Have you seen my father? she asks.

The VCD judders to a halt as he punches the “eject” button hard, three times, four. He went to the airport.

Did he? The left corner of her mouth curls inward -- either a nervous tic or a telltale sign of satisfaction.

She continues: You must be C.J. Tossed out, an idle accusation. As if steeled by the observation, she enters the room, approaches him, light on her feet. She wears baggy lime sweat pants, the fashion of a rapper gone the way of sweetness and light. The pinpoint glare of the desk lamp hovers just outside her eyes on her glasses.

Yes, he says.

My father told me about you. Said I should meet you. She gives a dubious little sniff.
 
He doesn’t reply immediately, and is irritated by his hesitation. What does he care? He never wanted to meet her. But nothing is worse than discovering that another’s indifference matches or trumps your own.

Slowly, he says, Just been helping him out with some letters. Emails mostly. International. 

International?

Hungary.

Her shoulders hunch up, ever so slightly. She actually looks cute that way, with those thin arms and her plain pink T-shirt.

What did you say? she asks.

You should tell your boyfriend your father isn’t too happy about the situation.

Yes, even cuter now -- her cheeks shot through with crimson. She looks determinedly at his legs, just below the knees.

Fuck, she grunts. You have to be kidding me.

Your father’s pretty upset about Australia. Your boyfriend’s been in contact with him. He didn’t tell you? He knows he shouldn’t, but he’s enjoying this.

A guttural sigh escapes her. She rubs her forehead between her thumb and index finger, a gesture that somehow reminds him of her father: Young man, I told you...

This door was locked, she says. Why were you locked in?

He tosses his notepad over to her. She reads the first few sentences of the aborted message, her two top teeth sinking into her lip. One of her teeth juts out a bit more than the other.

Have you met this guy in person? No, course not, it’s not a big deal, he hurries to add as she gives him a look that could be interpreted as lethal if you were a parent. Anything far away looks good. Must be damn boring living here. You go to the International School, right?

She gives a single nod.

Yeah, too boring. Boring enough to fall for words on a screen. An idea. Something that may be there, maybe not. I once ran off with someone who was just an idea. Not easy. Leads to a lot of unexpected accidents. But you don’t know until you meet. Even then you might not know. Spend time with him before you go on any adventures. Here in Taiwan, in familiar surroundings. Try it out. Your father doesn’t have to know.

My father would find out, she murmurs.

Does your father find out everything? Like the hotel on the corner of Chunghsiao Road and Fuhsing Road?

She stares at him: blank or shocked? Hard to tell. He reaches over and extracts the notepad from her grip; she lets it go without a struggle. He slips the VCD back into its jewel case and hands it to her.

Better be careful. I think this one is already out there.

All the color flees her face as she sees the case and what is displayed there.

I wasn’t looking for it, he says. Just found it by chance. Mr. Lau made this. His card is in there. 

What -- she finally croaks. What am I supposed to --

I have to go.

He turns for the open door but the Filipino servant blocks the exit, his arms at his sides, absurdly stiff.

It’s all right, she says. He can go.

The servant makes no movement, gives no sign of acknowledgment.

C.J. is standing by the world globe made of safety glass. It is kept in place with screws on each pole that fasten it to the wooden frame. With a few quick twists the north pole is undone, and the weight of the globe wrenches it free from the south pole with a satisfying crack as the wood splinters. The globe rolls across the room, bearing down on the bookshelves across the way, and C.J. strides for the door as the servant staggers into action, all decorum lost as his well-manicured hands scrabble at the edges of the globe, struggling in vain to slow its progress as Miss Wang watches C.J. leave the room, the VCD clasped hard to her chest with both hands, her eyes fogged with fear and understanding.

***

Everything is moist with mildew -- his hands, the vinyl seat of his scooter, the brakegrips. It is that magic time of night in which Taipei sheds its tawdriness and sinks into an ocean of faint acetylene lights, buildings rooted like trees, traffic muffled as distant thunder, only passing headlights interrupting the stillness. 

Once he had seen a television program that extrapolated the decay of a city once erased of all humans and left to its own devices. The first thing to go would be the subterranean world -- the subways, the undergrounds, flooded within a week, the rot working its way up. Here he fantasizes the process would be reversed. First the tops of the buildings and the cloverleaf overpasses, beaten down by the back-and-forth of sun and rain, weeds and vines growing up like ruined swampland, stretching until they touched the streetlamps, and eventually they would be bent and crushed under the onslaught. The roads would be last -- pounded and rolled so long under wheels, they would be like folded steel, with no vegetation underneath to crack through. It would be up to the weeds from above to touch down, crack it open, like slow-motion lightning.

Outside the Chen residence he is at a safe remove, his scooter positioned behind a smallish sedan with the usual smoke-tinted windows. Somewhere on the trip over the stink of gas has gotten itself into his clothes, and brushing at it only succeeds in spreading the contagion. Maybe the gas would be the last thing to go when the city died -- it would stick to everything, cling and seep and penetrate, and generations of plants and rubble would carry it, like a dominant gene. He imagines thousands of abandoned cars, tanks loaded with petrol, sitting and deflating as the tires gave out, husks and skeletons, and yet the fuel tanks would persist, the fuel inside them intact.

The mosquitoes are out in force; he swats at them with a lazy hand. He recalls that back in Texas, mosquitoes are gigantic, all drowsy with their giant wings, but here they are small and maddening, never resting for even an instant. Around the corner is an all-night restaurant, tables set up outside for the evening, miniature fans oscillating and keeping the insects away from the food. He can smell the beef shank noodles, the rotten cabbage and trash collected out back.

Twenty minutes ago Allen called him: Operation Smoke-out is in effect, he announced with the lilt of a carnival barker. I put in the call to Mrs. Chen just now. Progress reports every half-hour, understood?

Understood, he replied. Carol’s giggle was in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking of her in that tight swimming suit. She was probably at the bar, lined up with three identical women in swimsuits at the front door to greet visitors, each of them holding up a photographic cut-out of Lucky Star beer, the words Lucky Star emblazoned on ribbons that crisscrossed their bodies, labeling them like beauty pageant contestants. And maybe once or twice, when no one was looking, she would reach down and spread her fingers over her belly, contemplating Georgia and a child, what it would feel like to be pregnant, how much her skin would swell to accommodate. And she would relax into an unplanned smile that no one would see.

Still no sign of movement or commotion from within the Chen residence. Only the same living room light burning, the faint drip-drip of water from the earlier thunderstorm plummeting off the eaves. He holds his hand up to his mouth and breathes on it. It stinks of the pork chop he had at lunch. He is wasting away, no doubt about it. Sure, he has the appearance of being healthy with the Taiwan food and the running around he does on a daily basis, but he is growing smaller and smaller, neck definitely goose-thin now. Too thin for his clothes, anyway (he tightens the drawstring around Allen’s size 38 pants). What was the word he heard once in school? Declension. If this isn’t it, nothing is. Everything seems so ridiculous now, especially his muddied reflection in the rear view mirror of his scooter -- how has it been possible to live with such a dirty mirror for such a long time and not even acknowledge its inadequacy? Has he let things go to such an extent?

So where to next? Out of Taiwan? He knows nothing of anywhere else. A scant few months here, and already he is a fact of life, moldy and damp. But while Allen has the comfort of rotting away inside the mausoleum he has made, he will wither out in the open, a soldier ant making its way from mountain to mountain, eventually reduced to a bunch of bones and tissue underneath the smoggy sun.

The cell phone registers the time at 10:11 p.m. when the Chens’ front door opens. He can hear faint cries coming from within, and for a moment his fingers tighten about the handlebars of his scooter, but it is only Blackie the dog crying out for attention, the sound of it bearing a hard resemblance to a baby’s scream.

Annie Chen steps outside. She is wearing jeans and a lightweight black top that cuts off just above her breasts, two straps as thin as string over her shoulders. Tripping over to her Korean car, she struggles into a jacket that is a cross between an overcoat and ski jacket. He kicks his scooter to life and waits, headlights off. The car revs obnoxiously to life, takes a few minutes to maneuver itself into a three-point turn, or more accurately a six-point turn. All the while he sits and waits, not daring to blink. Finally the car lurches past him to the end of the alley, and as it passes he catches a glimpse of Annie’s face in profile, colored seaweed-green by the car’s dashboard light, staring ahead zombie-like. The car exits onto Minsheng, heading east. He pulls around and swings onto the street a touch faster than advisable, and a car passing in the other direction leans on its horn. He no longer pays attention to horns – a few months before a bus had nearly run him down at an intersection, the two of them speeding alongside each other as he shook his fist and slammed it against the bus’s passenger door, the bus driver blasting the horn for nearly a quarter of a mile and swerving back and forth at him, trying to drive him against the curb, until finally the scooter front wheel caught against something and sent him and the machine into a sliding, screeching stop, the bus triumphantly departing with a cough of dark black smoke, leaving him sprawled on the road, looking up at the sky, passersby staring down quizzically but otherwise doing nothing.

Annie is driving at a reckless clip, either desperate or sub-competent. A few times she swerves to overtake a car in another lane, and he can measure the distance between her side-view mirror and the other car in inches. He stays with her, the world around him distilled to primary-colored store signs piled atop one another, the luminescent glow of the grain in the street. It is a thudding, monotonous pattern: quickie mart, clothing store, quickie mart, run-down restaurant, quickie mart, scooter shop, quickie mart. Every so often he is a few feet away from her rear bumper, and he stares intently at her rear view mirror to see a flash of eyes and hair. Every so often she holds up her phone to her ear, and the wrist strap bobs back and forth. 

He is distracted as a bus bounces past. The petroleum nearly chokes him. Still, there is freedom in this movement -- it is a rare pleasure to be able to pick up speed on a city avenue like this, the hot air whipped up into something that is nearly invigorating, the spell of possibility hanging over him, as if the next turn could lead to an enchanted place, much like when he first arrived in town and was wandering aimlessly down a faceless office boulevard when he happened upon a jazz bar called Sirduke, the interior fashionably angular and polished, but the be-bop genuine and setting his toe tapping against the marble floor as he nursed two drinks the whole night through and marveled at the thought that one can find anything almost anywhere.

Now she has turned north, away from downtown, up a side-street, and the smooth black of the road gives way to bumpy pavement. The only sound now is the hum of his own engine as it sputters away, deafening in contrast to the stillness around him. He almost feels like apologizing: Sorry, just passing, I’ll be gone in a moment. Around them are more apartment buildings, clothes dancing on the lines, the faint scent of fish. A theater marquee drifts past -- another American action film translated into generic Chinese, Kill You Two Times -- and alongside the marquee is a hand-painted poster adapted from the original one-sheet, the features of the lead actor altered: Brad Pitt? Tom Cruise? Impossible to tell.

She is heading east again, the traffic thinned to almost nothing, the road slimmed to a single lane, the Sun Yatsen highway snaking above them. He eases back to a safe distance. The space to their left is now yawning and empty -- they are running alongside the Keelung River, the banks of it a barren, wide plateau that might be mistaken for something manmade, like an abandoned airfield. The hills beyond the river are dotted with erratic streetlamps, while the river itself is sunken, mired in a perpetual low tide, barely visible. He once went to the end of the river, where it empties out at Keelung city in a rancid yellow swell of chemicals and pollutants, and stared out east, at a far line of lights in the Pacific that could have been another city in another country but which he knew were simply the lights on trawlers heading in to Taiwan.

He hears the disco club before he sees it -- the subsonic thump thump of the bass piledriving through his chest as if an alien is lurking there. And then the club itself becomes visible just around the bend, a converted warehouse smothered in neon red and blue, cars lined up in supplication in a dirt lot adjacent. Atop the warehouse, tall cursive letters spell KK. One more K and we’d have a problem, he thinks. A searchlight has been propped up by the front door, and it swings from side to side, carving out 180 degrees each time, illuminating nothing but empty air, clouds of dust from approaching cars, insects buzzing past in brilliant white. The spotlight falls on Annie’s car for a moment as it brakes to a lurching halt at the far end of the parking lot, the side closest to the river. He pulls up at the opposite side, alongside a dozen other scooters, the whole line on the verge of collapsing like dominos.

Annie is out of the car and walking at a brisk pace, away from the disco, towards the river. He follows on shaky legs, his knapsack hanging heavy on his sore left shoulder. The air is heavy like cotton; a sure sign that rain is coming. Behind him, a remix of a Western song is playing inside, the volume waxing and waning every time someone opens and closes the front door. The tune is a punk-style rave-up, the singer bellowing the chorus before punctuating it with a sedate spoken statement of fact: You gotta keep ’em separated …

The roving searchlight exposes the riverbank as dust and emptiness, and he slows to a near-turtle pace as his eyes struggle to adjust to the dark -- every step might just as well be the final one taken before tumbling into an abyss. Further and further they walk, until the interruptions of the searchlight are as intimate as candles. He can barely make out Annie’s retreating figure ahead as it floats over the riverbank like the shadow of something flying above. As they draw closer to the river pathetic shrubs begin to appear, loose collections of pebbles, unrecognizable plastics and paper products that have been deposited by the wash. The ground is more humid and pliable under his feet.

At the edge of the river a few feet back from the water, to the left, stands a man. C.J. cannot make out anything except his general form -- he seems a bit stooped, a bit overweight. Annie is walking straight towards him. C.J. hustles over to his right, where the riverbank dips a bit more acutely, providing him a natural alcove to hide. What’s the course of action? Spy camera, if he had a spy camera. Recording device, if he had a recording device. The thump thump of the disco is still louder than their footsteps.

C.J. sets his knapsack down and sinks to his hands and knees, keeping as low as he can. A cracked beer bottle lies on the ground just in front of him, but he is too squeamish to touch it, move it out of the way. Lucky Star beer. About twenty feet away, Annie and the stranger are talking, or rather the man is speaking, his voice too low to understand. She simply stands there, head down. What kind of relationship is it? Friends? Familial? The man’s movements hold the languor of age, and here he is placing a paternal hand on Annie’s shoulder. Paternal? Mr. Chen? Something out of a cheap film noir, but Allen had predicted as much. The man is explaining something to her. C.J. is now flat on his stomach, crawling through the minefield of trash, inch by inch. The sand is wet and it sticks to his elbows and knees. Other debris clinging now too -- he doesn’t want to guess what it is. The couple is about ten feet away. The man’s left arm is about Annie’s shoulders and they are perfectly still, their backs to him, her head nestled in the crook of his arm. Not father? Lover? Who can say? What divides such things? He can smell the river now -- it reeks of gas. Or is it him? He has brought the gas with him. They have separated and the man is speaking again, both of them still facing the river. C.J. hears fugitive words: …won’t be long. You don’t have to … don’t worry.

With an abrupt shake of the head -- Fear? Sadness? Anger? -- Annie whirls around and stomps away from the man, back towards the disco. It is only through dumb luck that she does not see C.J. -- she has turned to her left to escape, rather than to her right. C.J. watches her depart, her legs exaggerated in their up-and-down movements as she makes her way up the riverbank. The man watches her leave, only calling out once: Annie! An older man, no question about it. His voice has gravel in it. The distant searchlight reaches out feebly once again, and C.J. lifts his head, his lips pulled back from his teeth and his eyes narrowed to slits as he peers at the man’s face, ready to settle this once and for all --

The cell phone in C.J.’s pocket rumbles in vibrator mode for an instant before the ring tone goes off, and the instant is stretched out in his mind, as if he is someone else watching himself. He has heard of animals whose nerves shut off upon encroachment of almost certain death -- a single moan, a dignified readying of the body for the end. Maybe something similar here, either that or he unconsciously finds the humor in the moment, which is all the same thing anyway, either you laugh at your impending doom or slide into ready-made shock, or both.

The ring tone is Faye Wong, and this time the song is the opening to “Angel”: brush-stroke snare drums and chiming guitars. Too late (but he knew he would be too late), he reaches down to his pants pocket where the phone is, his hand caked with mud and who knows what else. By the time his rigid fingers are around the phone, the man towers above him, his legs pillars in the near-dark.

C.J. coughs. Scrambling to get on his feet, he begins: Excuse me …

The man’s foot closes the distance between the ground and C.J.’s face. The dirt at the bottom of the shoe makes contact before the rest, and the sting of it in his eyes is like a blessing. Dark goes white and he flops over on his side, hands instinctively shielding his face. Now the foot is working him at the midsection, right in the solar plexus, and his hands drift down there to block the blow. Back to the face again. Already dizzy with pain, he almost groans Make up your mind! Hands are grasping at his shoulder, clutching skin as well as shirt, and he yelps. The man’s face is inches away. No, too dark, can’t make him out.

Who are you? the man grunts.

I fell asleep, C.J. says through a mouth metallic with blood. Sorry, I came out for fresh air and I fell asleep …

Asleep? You son of a bitch. Bullshit. 

C.J. is sitting down again -- such a nicety, to be able to sit down on soft earth. A beer bottle under his ass, intact. Lucky Star again. The man is reaching over to the side, unzipping the knapsack.

No! Stop that! C.J. yells, or at least he thinks he yells it, certainly the sound of it lingers in his throat, but the man seems not to have heard. He is pulling out the folders inside, opening them to see the photos of Mr. Chen. There is a faint rustling as the man searches for a cigarette lighter, the better to see with.

Stop, C.J. sighs one more time. His right hand is around the neck of the beer bottle. The man’s lighter is being flicked. Once, twice. Still no ignition. Bottle up, raised above the head, but how long can his arm maintain this position? All the blood rushes from the hand. The simplest of magic tricks. Hold a ball to your head, and the magician guesses which hand has the ball. The pale hand always holds the ball. But what if you raise your hand to your head for only an instant? Or raise both hands? Or you have some sort of defective condition in which one of your hands is always pale with blood loss?

The man’s lighter sparks to life just as C.J. brings the bottle down on the man’s head. There is a satisfactory moment in which the bottle remains solid in his grip as it meets flesh and bone, and then everything gives way as the glass shatters and the half-beer, half-riverwater inside rolls down his exposed arm. The man yells once, shouting an expletive in Taiwanese, and then he is up and scrambling away, his hands to his head. The lighter is in the dirt, extinguished, and C.J. scoops it up, thankful for its smooth, pristine surface. 

Who are you? he says. The man is not there to hear the question. C.J. struggles to his feet and looks around him. No sign of the man, no standard telltale trail of blood, too many footprints in the area to accurately mark his route. The beer bottle he had before must have completely disintegrated, for he cannot see shards, glass particles, anything. Just the sickly foam of the bottle’s innards caking his arm. With a gargantuan effort he reaches down, gathers up the folders, stuffs them back inside the knapsack, and begins walking. One step at a time, foot before foot, back towards the disco. The searchlight is getting brighter, pinpointing the growing ache just behind his left eye. He wipes his mouth with his forearm. Every step tears at his guts where he took the blows. His cell is going off again. “Angel.” One more time, Faye. He looks at the screen, the tidy little digital readout. It’s Allen. Screw Allen, he thinks, for the first time, and he goes on. He is at the edge of the parking lot. Annie’s car is still there. His feet shuffle in the direction of the disco front door. With a deep breath he steels himself for the task ahead of him, and without a pause, rushing through it so he doesn’t find an excuse to stop in the middle of it, he bats at his body, shaking off the dirt, the mud, all the excesses of the riverfront. That seems to have done the trick. Or maybe it hasn’t, he is no condition to tell. But he must pass muster with the usher who stands before him. Eyes wide. Keep them wide, maintain the illusion of alertness. Good posture. That was always his weakness, he always slouched. There was the root of all evil right there. You slouch and pretty soon everything in your life goes wrong. Why did he not think of this before?

The usher is a young man, maybe no more than 22 years old, clean-shaven, spiky hair, dressed in a silk shirt that approximates a tuxedo. The usher is shaking his head. Dammit, what did I do wrong now? C.J. thinks.

The usher says: Sir, you can’t bring in your bag. His tone is that of a friendly department store clerk, but his face remains expressionless. A neat trick. One must learn that one.

Oh. Okay, he replies. The searchlight is turning his way. No good, too bright and all will be revealed. He swivels, just in time. Annie’s car is closer than his scooter. Is the usher watching him? No, he has more customers to attend to. C.J. will not even steal a glance back over at the front door. The usher will not have the satisfaction. He stares at the interior of Annie’s car for a moment -- it is completely bare, without a single trinket, folded-up magazine or crumpled cup to mark a human presence. He reaches out and steadies himself against the left passenger window. Inside the disco, house music has taken hold -- bump, bump, bump-bump-bump. He can feel the thud again in his chest; that is a good thing, it means some amount of sensation, a smidgen of discernment, has returned. Overtaken by nausea, he leans over, but only a hacking cough erupts from his mouth, which only constricts his throat and inspires further coughs. Pneumonia, he thinks, this is what comes of living in a sub-tropical climate. Too harried to conjure a more elegant solution, he pulls his notepad, Lau’s files, the VCDs from his knapsack, divesting the latter from their jewel cases, and shoves them down inside the baggy folds of his shirt. For a few moments they feel cool, dry, almost like a massage, and then they are as sweaty as the rest of him as he boogies in place, shifting the items to his back, stuffing the shirt hard into his pants there to keep everything in place. He throws the empty knapsack into a nearby ditch, and seconds later he is back before the usher, this time at the ready with the citizen ID Allen fabricated for him two months before. Come on you bastard, he thinks. Too much longer and the bruises will start to show. The usher’s penlight dances on the ID photo. What a rictus grin he has there. Just like Lee Teng-hui.

The usher has the alacrity of airport security as he glances at the photo, then the face before him. Eventually he nods silently and gestures towards the front door with a slight bow. Thank you, C.J. says -- yes, he can play this game too -- and he pushes through the front door, immediately to be swallowed by translucent lights, the chattering of loud voices, the unmistakable conglomeration of nicotine and beer, a DJ shouting All right all right all right! above the music. 

He makes straight for the bathroom, where he ensconces himself for the next five minutes, his swollen reflection staring at him from the mirror as the world continues to move. It is a small bathroom, three stalls crowded into a space scarcely bigger than a kitchenette. Suggestively, the window is big enough to squeeze a man through without incident, the glass swung outward on rusty hinges, the summer breeze poking through, enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.  Men in spiky jelled hair come and go. Almost all of them have some sort of leather bracelet or chain wallet or satin shirt, and all of them regard him with quick, hooded glances. He stares right back at them; without exception, they all look away.

Back outside in the main dance hall, blue and red floodlights war for dominion. The music is a big ball of noise, somehow less defined here in this high-ceilinged room than it was when he was outside. An empty table nearby holds half-finished beer glasses, and he snatches two of them, gulping them down in rapid succession. He finds an open spot along the wall and leans against it -- blessed be the distribution of weight! -- and waits. Staring at the inside of one of the emptied glasses, he sees the spectrum of light formed by the glitterball overhead as it whirls in perfect circles.

When he lowers the glass he sees Annie: alone, on the opposite side of the room, seated at a table, her coat neatly draped on the back of her chair, her bare shoulders weaving from side to side in a fair approximation of a hip-hop dancer. A cigarette hangs, gangster-like, from her mouth. She is staring at the dance floor, where couples are clumped together, with no room to do anything except awkwardly bob up and down in place. No one wears baggy, low-hung pants, thank goodness -- he hates that particular modern American fashion. He stands, steeling himself, opening lines careening about in his head -- Miss Chen, I need to talk to you … Excuse me, are you …? … Can you help me with something? -- and then he sees the group of uniformed policeman that have just entered the hall, at least a dozen of them in their blue shirts and caps, fanning out along the walls, edging closer and closer to him, looking for all the world like a baseball team lining up on the diamond for pre-game introductions.

He covers the distance to Annie’s table within a dozen steps, each footfall as careful as military strategy, bodies seemingly giving way in deference to his need. She does not see him until they are eye to eye. His back to the policemen, he seats himself across from her. Now that she is up close, he observes that she is much more petite than he thought, much like movie stars off-screen. Her face is freckled about her nose and under her eyes.

Hello, he says.

She nods at him without really looking at him.

I need to ask you something, he continues.

This time her eyes latch on him for a full four seconds as she flips through internal memory -- No, I don’t know this man. She breathes a cloud of cigarette smoke in his general direction, and yet the gesture is endearing, a cloaked nervousness behind it. Her cigarettes are native Taiwanese, authoritative and thick, the kind that stick to your clothes for days afterwards.

He plants the man’s cigarette lighter upright on the table. Who owns this? he says.
 
Her fingers play around the rim of her glass as she stares at the lighter, dazed, mute. Ever since he landed in this city he has seen this vacant look: on the faces of passersby in the street, on the faces of those too stubborn or indifferent to offer help, on Allen’s face when he posits one of those rhetorical questions that cannot be answered correctly, most of all on his own face whenever he catches fugitive sight of it in his scooter’s rear view mirror.

Start talking or you’ll be talking to someone less polite than me, he snaps. You just met this man outside. Who is he? Your father?

Who are you?

I’m an investigator. Is that true? He realizes it is, for the first time. Yes and no. Takes a criminal to catch a criminal.

Investigator? Her eyes are inhuman in their wideness, their inability to blink, even as the dancehall lights buzz madly about her face. In fact, she hasn’t blinked once since the conversation began. Like staring at a painting. Renaissance, with the longish hair framing her face, features aglow and soft. The only thing out of place is the cigarette, which juts along with her jaw in masculine fashion. It occurs to him that she is not all there. 

In a move that is as unexpected as reflex, her right hand moves for the lighter, and he grabs hold of it an instant before she touches it. Instead, her fingers encounter his balled fist. Her hand lays there, wan and cold. Colder than one would expect in this hothouse. The skin on her arms too, all prickly.
 
Are you --  he begins, and in mid-sentence the music is choked off and the house lights wax to full intensity, no grace period in between. An atmosphere of candied spotlights and smoky air a moment before, now funereal black as walls and floor emerge. Everyone’s faces are sallow in the unforgiving luminescence. Someone is speaking on a megaphone, but he can’t make out what is being said within the squelch.

Dammit. She shakes her head. 

What are they saying?

ID checks. Now that she is speaking in relative quiet, he notes her speech is slightly slurred. They’re inspecting everyone’s IDs.

Quietly, slowly, all the dancers and patrons are being directed to sit at tables. The policemen are spreading throughout the club, stopping at each table, noting names and IDs in their little black books. A policeman dressed in an orange windbreaker, either the leader or low on the totem pole, stands near the entrance to the dance hall, his eyes scanning the scene, ensuring everyone is staying in place. The nearest policemen to them are three tables away and getting closer. The silence of the process gives it an unreal aspect, as if it is occurring underwater.

I have to leave, she says. She is pulling her oversize coat around herself.

Are you under age?

Her left hand is jammed in her coat pocket. Not just that --

She appeals to him with those inattentive eyes once again and he comprehends. The policemen are now two tables away, bent over and focused on their work. It is as if they will only acknowledge the existence of those directly in front of them -- everyone else are mass assembly line items, ready to be scanned and checked off only at the exact instant they need to be, and then forgotten. 

His mind is already rushing ahead. His civilian ID passes casual inspection, but it will not hold up to any kind of official check. Not to mention the porn VCDs plastered by sweat to his back. 

Okay, he says. Take it easy. We have to get out through the back.

But they’re watching …She hunches over the table, and with that movement she appears to age by a few decades, as if seized by arthritis. Drops of perspiration are working down her cheek.

Listen to what I say, he says. When I get up and move into the middle of the room, sneak out through the men’s bathroom. There’s a large window you can use. You understand?

What are you going to do?

Keep low and against the wall. Get ready.

Without hesitation, so as to not give her a chance to back out, he pushes himself away from the table, the chair creaking as it tilts back on its two hind legs, and he is reminded of the old trick in which you can drain a soda can of three-quarters of its liquid and stand it on the edge of its bottom rim, and it will remain there indefinitely, neither falling nor regaining its original upright condition. Then the moment of stasis passes and the back of the chair hits the floor and he tumbles out. He gives out a loud laugh which comes out more as an exclamation, for that is what it is, a new catalogue of pain marking the back of his head. Belatedly, he notes the sharp crack he heard when he fell -- the VCDs crushed against his back.

Hey! one of the cops yells. Hey!

He stumbles up onto his knees, letting his head roll about his shoulders in an approximation of drunkeness. It actually feels better this way; the aches in his body seem to retreat at this loose-limbed display. All eyes in the room are on him.

Where’d the music go? he speaks in his flawless native Texan English. What’s happenin’ here? I came here for drinks and music, and they’re both gone!

One of the policeman is helping him to his feet -- a man probably the same age. He has a smart crewcut, a heavy tan, and uneasy eyes that give away his youth. All the time C.J. faces him head-on, acutely aware of the lump at his back, the mosaic remains of VCD embedded there.

Sir, he says softly, in halting English. Sir, please. Identification check.

Identification? He plays at making an effort to get to his feet, then lets his legs go dead and flops down to his knees again. What is this? I just came for drinks! Have a good time! What’s this identification malarkey? What is this, Russia?

Whoa, that might have been too much, he thinks. In compensation he regains his feet and stands at relative attention. The table he has vacated now stands empty, no sign of Annie. Even the cigarette lighter is gone. The policeman has placed a steadying hand on his shoulder. Sir, please. I want to see identification, he says. His glance communicates a sincere desire to get this over with and get the hell home.

Identification, sure sure, he says. Strangely enough he feels a kinship with this young man. How nice it would be to evacuate the day’s disasters and just head home. If he knew where home was. He makes a small show of slapping his cheeks with both palms, sobering himself up. Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to holler at you. Wasn’t sure what was goin’ on, you know? It’s my first time in these parts …Unconsciously, he rubs at his backside where he fell, and then his hand travels up to the small of his back, patting the bundle there. When he looks at his fingers again they are sticky and red. He shoves the hand deep in his pocket.

The policeman is gesturing at his face. Are you hurt? he asks.

C.J. laughs. A comfortable laugh this time, perfectly judged. Oh, no, scooter accident. Was riding with a friend. You understand me? Speak the English? 

A few other policemen had sidled up to the first one, but seeing that the subject is now docile and under control, they are backing off, returning to the tables from whence they sprung. The first policeman asks in Mandarin: You speak Chinese? Taiwanese?

Um -- his cheeks bulge with effort, spitting out mutilated Taiwanese, not so difficult for him given his limited knowledge of the dialect: A little. Taiwanese, a little. Sor-ry. Stop hamming it up, he thinks; stop being so stereotypical for Chrissake.

Visiting. Tourist, the policeman says in English.

Yeah. Just visiting. No identification …

You have passport?

Of course. It is his only chance really -- if nothing else, his U.S. passport is the genuine item, able to withstand a cursory examination. Very unlikely these town cops would run a detailed check on a passport. 

He offers the passport to the police officer, and the man greets the embossed eagle on the front cover with a small sigh, as if he has understood for the first time that this is just another drunk American-born Chinese at play, wasting a summer away in Taiwan. He opens up to the first page and looks at the photo, then C.J., then the photo again. As the man flips through the book C.J. has the sense he is doing it less for formality’s sake and more out of curiosity -- So this is what a Taiwan visitor visa stamp looks like. Visa stamp. How long has he been here? Three months? Four? Is the visitor visa good for that long? What had he wrangled before he left America? Was it one of those multiple-entry visas, or the standard two-month version? Or was it the other one, the one given to those with family in Taiwan, good for up to a year? He hadn’t paid attention to the details. This is exactly what I mean, he thinks. How can you live a life when you’re so lax? No wonder you’re here, you fit right in. Not paying much attention to anything, you just float along until you vanish. Stick me in a prison cell and maybe I’ll just disappear tonight.

The policeman hands the passport back to him. Thank you, he says with an almost apologetic smile. Please stay, until check is complete.

Sure. Sure, friend, he says, flashing his best Sunday school grin. The young policeman has already turned away and moved on to the next table. He overhears him saying to the couple sitting there Let me see your identification, his tone now icy and in full control.

He moves along the back wall, several policeman eyeing him as he passes, but recognition flickers across their faces -- Oh, the loud American Chinese, the other guy already cleared him -- and they let him pass without a word. Other clubbers who have had their IDs inspected remain at their seats, giving their cell phones longing gazes. Like children in school, he muses.

His own cell phone goes off. “Angel.” Fortunately at this point he has made it around the corner and is in the men’s room, which is deserted, the window still open. Multi-tasking, he grabs hold of the side of the windowsill with one hand as he answers the phone with the other. His back is definitely hurt – there is a dull pain there, like an antiseptic needle jammed in and left there.

C.J., where the hell have you been? Allen blares. I’ve called you at least five times.

Sorry, wasn’t in a position to answer. His knuckles go white as he pulls hard and lifts himself onto the window ledge, one foot squarely on the edge, the other dangling just off the floor.

What’s going on? I called Mrs. Chen at home half an hour ago and no response. Has she left the house? Are you following her?

Annie Chen?

No, the mother! Where is she? Are you on her?

I’m following Annie --

What? Allen’s voice is interrupted by an ominous burst of static -- or maybe it is the sound of a deep breath, or a guttural curse.

Annie left the house first and I followed her to --

C.J., listen to me, man, it’s all about Mrs. Chen right now. The primary focus. That’s why I called her earlier, to set her off. Why didn’t you report to me when Annie left the house?
 
It was a command decision. Yes, he thinks, Allen likes words like that. Initiative. Guts.  Now he has both feet on the ledge, squatting like a gorilla with one hand hanging down at his ankles, the other with the phone at his head. Ready to take a dump into an imaginary toilet.

Don’t interrupt me. You don’t make the call, you understand buddy? He spits out the word buddy in two whip-like syllables. This is too important for you to screw with. We all are screwed. What are we gonna do now? No idea where Mrs. Chen is, who she might be going out to see. What can we do now?

I don’t know.

No shit you don’t know. Because you don’t focus. To you this is just something to do. You don’t recognize the import. You don’t see the opportunities, and you miss them! Jesus, why did I ever give you --

Just outside the window is a corrugated alley with pipes running down the walls at maze-like angles. Just a few feet to the bottom. He hops down from the sill, but in the process his left foot gets caught on something and he tumbles awkwardly, the phone escaping his grasp. With enough presence of mind to throw his elbows out, he lands with a woof -- the sound of the air getting crushed out of his body. His right elbow tingles, as if a tiny needle is getting jabbed into his skin there. He looks down to see the remains of his cell phone crushed underneath, the cracked display dead and gray, the plastic sides split open. He stares at what he has done, then gives a short, harsh laugh. Good. Good.

He staggers out of the alley, casting constant looks behind him at the bathroom window. No one has noted his departure. The night air is raw and heavy, a sure harbinger of a coming storm. Down on the ground, trailing behind him, radiating in the half-dark, are flat rectangular objects, like windows nailed to the earth. He blinks rapidly, focusing. Notepad paper. Loose leaf. His own notes, falling away from him. Mixed in are diamond-bright shards of erratic sizes and shapes. The crushed VCDs. He no longer cares and  rounds the corner to find himself in front of the club again. This time there is no sign of an usher, the doors shut. Without musical accompaniment, the spotlights continue to dodge and scatter, and it all seems faintly ridiculous. 

He staggers up to his scooter and frowns at it for a few seconds before it finally registers -- someone has stolen his helmet. Simplest thing to do really, it is only secured to the scooter by the chin strap, and all one has to do is cut it. Shit, he hisses out loud. He considers swearing to be a defeat, the last refuge of the inarticulate, but he says it again and again, Shit shit shit shit shit. The word becomes a house beat of its own, a relentless thudding tempo in 4/4 time. The clouds are opening up, curtains of thundershowers dropping down hard; he can see the precise little craters created by every drop falling on the cracked granite. He looks up into the sky, at the unseen rain that lands on his eyeballs like tiny bombs.

Are you okay?

He peers into the gloom of the parking lot from where he heard the words. It is Annie, stuffed in her oversized jacket, the rain bouncing off it effortlessly even as her hair falls in wet, unkempt bangs over her forehead. 

Fine, he says.

She nods, takes a few steps towards him. Thanks for helping me. She seems to have snapped back into semi-alertness -- at least, there is no hint that she will collapse on the spot.

What drugs does he give you? he asks.

She retreats a step, almost cowering. A thin index finger rises to her lips. Not here, she says.

Is he your father?

He is upon her and she addresses his feet with her eyes -- it is an improvement from earlier, in which she stared at nothing. Reticence? Guilt?

Are you going to tell my mother? she murmurs.

Oh hell, he thinks. She is utterly at his mercy.

Forget it, he says. It doesn’t matter if your father is alive or dead or if you met him tonight or if you see him on any night or if you’re involved with some kind of insurance theft -- He catches himself. Sorry, that didn’t sound nice. But I’m trying to be. Just once, I’m trying to be. 

He turns to leave, satisfied that his final words were sufficiently hard-boiled, when he hears a sharp intake of breath on her part. You’re bleeding, she says.

Yeah. Maybe. Nothing serious. He rubs at the small of his back. Yes, definite cuts there. That’ll hurt for a while. Better be ready to sleep on your side tonight. Someone had once told him that Taiwanese people have flatter noses because they sleep on their backs. As if there were any doubt that he wasn’t Taiwanese. 

Without knowing why, he adds: I have to take the bus home.

Why?

My helmet was stolen. I can’t ride home without the helmet in the rain.

Her mouth puckers into a half-smile that resembles a squiggle. Sure you can, she says. Just close your eyes.

He rubs at the rain on his face, clearing it away. Did she just make a joke? Is she being serious?

I’m not that good, he replies.

Okay. Come on.

What do you mean?

You helped me, I’ll help you. Where you want to go?

Hsientien. Are you well enough to drive?

Do you have a car license?

Defeated, he shrugs his shoulders. While she unlocks the driver-side door he pulls out his shirt from the back and retrieves what is left of his notepad and VCDs – scraps of paper, soggy cardboard, the surface of the CDs warped into tributaries, bits of them cracked off like crumbled cookies. Not quite knowing what to do with this ruined conglomeration, he holds it in his hands as he sits down. The interior of the car has the scent of sticky pine.

Let’s wait a minute, he says. The back of his seat is cold and wet -- no, it’s not the seat, it’s him. The sweat and the rain and the blood and the mud that got under his shirt. Somehow that thought makes him happy. Yes, I’m still here, he thinks, and an involuntary moan escapes his mouth. Just like a baby, no thought of appearance or propriety, only the satisfying expression of discomfort.

What happened to you? she says. She leans over to examine the bruises on his face. Up close, he can see the subtle mascara under her eyes, the way her nose ends in a small button. The remnants of cigarette smoke hover between them.

How often do you get the drugs? he asks.

She doesn’t flinch. It is as if she is getting progressively tougher, siphoning away his own strength.

I don’t know. When I feel bad. More lately.

I knew a woman who had a drug problem.

It’s not a problem. She says it matter-of-factly. Just something I do.

Sure, sure, he replies, without a trace of sarcasm. I know when it becomes a problem. One day I looked at this woman, right here -- He points to the crook in his arm. And I saw the scars. It was like someone had sliced pieces of skin away, right there. I knew then she was in trouble.

Annie nods. Slowly she pulls one arm free from her coat. The crook there is flawless.

Not a problem, she sighs. But not normal.

The car whinnies a bit before the ignition catches. Looking straight ahead, she says: You’re not from Taiwan.

America.

Why did you come here?

Good question. He draws a tired hand across his forehead, clearing away the rain from his hair. Some of it lands on her.

Damn it, sorry.

It’s nothing, she says. She shifts the car into gear. The intensified ping of the rain against the windows is pleasant. As they turn onto the main road, she activates the wipers. They silently watch the lamplights dissolve and reform themselves every few seconds.

I heard your mother left your home a little while ago, he says. You know where she went?

She’s probably looking for me. She worries.

I thought she only cared about mahjong.

Mahjong and me. She rubs her sleeve against her eyes, then blurts out: You know I’ve had two fathers.

I know. I was talking about your second father.

He died in a car accident.

Yes. I read the report.

And you think my mother and I lied.

I told you, I don’t care any more.

Why? You said you were an investigator.
 
It was. I think I just quit. Did you like your second father?

Her lips buzz as she exhales deeply; he cannot tell if she is amused by the question or holding back a flood of tears.

He was my father for a few years. I didn’t see him most of the time. He didn’t like being with my mom too much.

I know. Sounds like he just wanted to get away.

I want to get away.

We don’t have to go to Hsientien, he says.

Where to, then?

How far to Kenting?

That’s the other side of Taiwan. Why you want to go there? People only visit on weekends.

That’s exactly why I want to go now, he thinks. He had heard from Allen: It’s Taiwan’s answer to Hawaii. Different pace of life, you just hang out on the beach all day. And then there’s that bar near the Caesar Park hotel… those bar girls, I tell you, some real hotties. They’ve got names like Apple and Peach …Well, he is in no mood for bar girls or even white beaches and swaying palm trees. He just wants to see for himself, confirm it for himself. If the water’s warm enough, he thinks, I can dive in and swim all the way to Hong Kong, or if I’m in a slightly more realistic frame of mind, I’ll hop on a boat.

I can take you to the Taipei train station, she says. From there you can take a train to Kaohsiung, and from there --

You said you wanted to get away, he interrupts. You drive me to Kenting, I’ll pay for all of it.

Why?

To thank you.

For what?

Giving me a lift.

Happens every day.

Until today, it hasn’t happened to me at all.

She eyes him. Maybe you’re still investigating me.
 
No, no, no. How about this: you tell me whatever you want to tell me now, and we won’t talk about it ever again.

Maybe I don’t want to tell you.

That’s fine. Just say whatever you want, and that will finish that business, and we can move on.

Slowly, they are pulling away from downtown. Out the window to their right is the Taipei 101 building, a single gleaming blue matchstick in the night sky, no buildings next to it to give it any size of scale or importance. The road beneath them bumps and grinds, and the dirty streetlamps float by like buoys.

I miss my father, she says. She still looks straight ahead, her hands stiff on the wheel. He stares at her, keeping silent, waiting.

It was a drunk truck driver, she says. He was on the highway late at night, coming back from a trip, up in the mountains. The truck driver hit him straight on. My father was still alive, but the truck driver panicked. Thought it would be better if it looked like my father had an accident. So he pushed my father’s car off the side of the mountain, and drove on. You think my father woke up before the car was pushed off? You think he asked the truck driver to save his life? Did he ever realize that he was getting killed ...

She swallows her saliva, shaking her head angrily. That’s it, she says.

She fumbles for her cigarettes from her purse. He shoos off her hand with a gentle push and digs the pack out, along with the lighter. He lights a cigarette in his mouth, choking hard on the smoke -- how long has it been? Years? Then he holds the lit cigarette out, and she clamps down on it with her mouth. Her lips brush against his thumb and forefinger.

Thank you, she says. 

Can we go to Kenting? he asks.

You’re serious about that?

Sure. I mean, it doesn’t matter. Anywhere you want to go is fine.

You don’t care? What if I drive into the other lane? Maybe I want to hit a truck head on.

Doesn’t matter.

You’re weird.

Not as weird as you, maybe.

She snorts. Crazy ...

What I mean is, I don’t believe in life after death. There’s a light switch. On and off. I can’t worry about when it switches off.

Maybe you should worry. Not all the time, but sometimes. Enough to make you care about things.

How do I do that?

I don’t know.

They are on a ramp now, heading up to the highway, and the streetlights are suddenly soaring, piercing stars. The road is nearly empty save for the watercolor red dots of cars far ahead of them. The smooth concrete beneath them is effortless. Almost like flying, he thinks, or free-falling.

So where do you want to go? he asks.

Annie sighs deeply. The sound of it is as if a part of her has escaped, for good.

I don’t know. Maybe we can drive for a while. What do you think? We’ll just drive, and if one of us thinks of something, we can decide.

C.J. nods. They are approaching the tunnel that separates inner Taipei from the surrounding towns and villages. The inside of it is lit a sickly yellow. Completely focused on the road ahead, Annie shifts into a higher gear and the car slides into the tunnel. All sounds of rain disappear, and all that is left is the hum of the engine, the muffled click as she switches to fifth gear. He hefts the notepad paper and mutilated VCDs in his hands, the remains of his life. He rolls down his window, greeted by the acerbic roar of the tunnel around them, and chucks everything out. It flutters to the road behind them, billowing like burning ashes. Annie gives him a questioning look, her face lit up again and again as the lights swim by. His only response to her is a grin, and she matches it with a free and easy toss of her cigarette out the window on her side. Up ahead he can see the hind end of the tunnel, the rain coming down in a curtain and blackness on the other side, a faint glimmer which may be the headlights of a vehicle coming in from around the bend, or a reflection of their own headlights.