Hour of the Rat Read Online Free Page B

he’s contemplating the universe or something. I stretch out my bad leg, which has started to cramp up and is hurting like hell.
    Neither of us says anything. Young Cop busies himself with opening up the complimentary tea bags and putting them into two cups.
    The kettle hisses steam, and there’s a loud click as it turns itself off. I flinch.
    Young Cop pours water into the cups and carries them over. Sets them on the little round table with a rattle and retreats, smiling in that embarrassed way of his.
    “You two can go,” the man says to the cops.
    After that it’s just the two of us and more silence. The man sips his tea. So do I.
    He’s better at this silence thing than I am.
    “You want to talk to me,” I say. “I’m here. You want to ask me something? Or what?”
    “I am just waiting. For my colleague. His English is better than mine.” He looks at his watch, a fake—or possibly real—Rolex. “Perhaps there’s bad traffic.”
    So far he hasn’t spoken a word of English. Maybe he’s telling the truth.
    I hear the whir of a keycard unlocking the door.
    “Ah. He’s arrived.” The man turns to me and smiles. “I think you know each other.”
    The door opens.
    That’s when I realize: I am so totally screwed.

CHAPTER THREE

    “Y ILI .”
    “John.”
    Yeah, I know him.
    He’s wearing a black leather jacket, a nicer one than he used to wear, a grey sweater beneath it. Jeans and low leather boots. There’s a white scar that cuts into one eyebrow, the wisp of a beard on his upper lip and chin. I always thought he was good-looking, and he’s better-looking now, something about the way the strong bones of his face have sharpened, how his dark eyes have the quality of banked coals.
    Nonetheless, he still creeps me out.
    John, Zhou Zheng’an, or whatever the fuck his real name is, hesitates by the door for a moment. Then he walks to the desk. He’s light on his feet; the hitch in his step from when he got hurt last year is nearly gone.
    Lucky bastard, I think unreasonably.
    He pulls out the desk chair and sits.
    “How do you know each other?” the other man asks. He repeats the question, just to make sure I understand.
    Fuck, fuck, the fucking fuck. What am I supposed to say? What’s John told them? None of it? Some of it? Everything?
    “Why don’t you ask him?” I say. “You already know, right?”
    “Yili, it’s better if you explain.” John stares at me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, what the expression means.
    I never really trusted him. By the end I figured he was some kind of cop. But this … I wasn’t expecting this.
    If I say the wrong thing, I’ll be even more fucked than I already am.
    Leniency for those who confess. Severity for those who refuse
.
    Though if he’s told them everything … well, I guess I’m fucked regardless. And maybe not just “get kicked out of the country” fucked. More like “go directly to jail” fucked.
    My heart starts to thud in my chest, and I’m sweating beneath my sweatshirt. They can tell, I’m sure.
    I drink some bitter tea.
    “We met last year,” I say in English. “At a party. We ran into each other a few times after that. Got attacked during this riot. I thought maybe he was spying on me or something.” I don’t have to fake a pissed-off glare in John’s direction.
    John translates, but from the look on Pompadour Bureaucrat’s face, I think he pretty much caught the gist in English.
    “What reason would he have to spy on you?” he asks, still speaking Chinese.
    “I don’t know. You tell me.”
    John winces, fractionally.
    Dial it down, I tell myself. “I’m friends with a lot of artists. Seems like you don’t always trust them.” I speak in English. John translates, accurately from what I can tell.
    “Of course we support China’s cultural modernization,” the man says, continuing in Mandarin. “China aims to become a global cultural force. It’s a part of our current Five-Year Plan.”
    “Maybe you should