Peter May - The Firemaker

Eventually Yongli caught the eye of a bouncer he knew, and they were waved in. There was a ten-yuan entrance fee and the first drink was free. A circular red symbol, impossible to read, was stamped on the back of their right hands, and they passed on through a cloakroom area to the bar, which stretched the length of one wall. A large floor area was crowded with tables and chairs, all filled by animated youths drinking and smoking. At the far end was a raised platform with microphone and speakers and a karaoke screen. A spotty boy with a shock of thick, coarse hair that fell across his eyes was singing some unrecognisable Taiwanese pop song. No one was listening to him. Wooden stairs led up to a gallery that ran around three walls, overlooking the floor below. It, too, was crowded. The noise was deafening.

They made their way to the bar and Yongli waved their tickets at the barman, and they got two half-litre glasses of Tsing Tao beer. Li looked around as he sipped his. Where did all these kids get the money? This was not a cheap night out. ‘You want to try and find a table?’ Yongli bellowed in his ear.

Li nodded, and followed as Yongli climbed the stairs to the gallery two at a time. At the top Yongli spoke to a waitress. Whatever he said, she laughed loudly, and from the way her eyes were fixed on him it was clear that she found him attractive. He grinned back at her and squeezed her around the waist and winked, and she flushed red. He had such an easy way with him. Li wondered, as he had often done in the past, what it was that women found attractive about him. He was far from conventionally good-looking. But there was something about his eyes, and his smile. Something roguish. He could have had almost any woman he wanted. And yet he had fallen for Lotus.

The waitress weaved her way to the far side of the gallery and bent over a table to speak to the group of kids that sat around it. They glanced over towards Yongli, then shrugged and reluctantly moved away, taking their drinks with them, in search of standing room somewhere else. The waitress beckoned Yongli across, and Li followed him to the table. She gave him a big smile, wiped their table clean and placed a fresh ashtray in the centre. ‘You give me a shout when you need a refill,’ she said.

‘You bet.’ Yongli grinned and winked again, and she flushed with pleasure, hurrying away through the tables. He flicked a cigarette across at Li. ‘Helps when they know you,’ he said.

Li laughed. ‘It’s got nothing to do with knowing you. All you’ve got to do is smile and you’ve got half the women in Beijing fawning at your feet.’ He lit both their cigarettes.

‘True,’ Yongli said modestly. ‘But it doesn’t do any harm that Lotus is a regular on-stage here.’

The music stopped then, and the sense of relief Li felt was enormous, like stopping banging his head against a wall. They no longer had to shout at each other to make themselves heard.

‘So, when is she on?’ Li asked.

Yongli checked the time. ‘About half an hour. There’s a guy plays keyboard, and another on guitar. And they’ve got one of these computerised drum things. They sound like a fifty-piece orchestra. They’re good.’

Li had never had much time for music, and he couldn’t imagine what Yongli’s idea of ‘good’ was. It was a measure of how far they had grown apart in recent years that a club like this was a familiar part of Yongli’s life, and completely alien to Li. He drank his beer and watched the faces all around him, high on alcohol and who knew what else, talking animatedly. Young men and women, drawn to this place in search of different things: romance, sex, a partner, an end to loneliness, an escape from the banality of their daylight lives. The ritualistic search of a boy for a girl, a girl for a boy, and perhaps for a few something in between. But there was a sad quality, desperate and slightly shabby, about it all. Painted and unreal. A gloss for the night on dull lives, which would have worn off by morning, when the veneer of partners picked up in this ersatz twilight world would not have quite the same sheen as the night before. Li felt only relief that he had missed out on this, was no part of it. And yet, was his world any better? he wondered. A world of murderers, pimps and drug dealers. A world in which, only a few hours before, he had stood watching a poor burned man being clinically dissected, had traced his last hours of life from a bloodstained carpet in an apartment to a fiery and agonising death in a park.

‘Hi.’ Li was startled out of his thoughts by a woman’s voice. He turned as Yongli’s chair scraped back and the big chef got up and put his arms around Lotus’s slender frame. His body seemed to envelop hers, and she looked up at him, smiling with clear affection, before he lowered his head to kiss her. He took her hand and stepped back.

‘You remember Li Yan.’

Li stood up and shook her hand awkwardly. ‘Of course,’ she said, smiling as if they were old friends and Yongli had asked a stupid question. A full-length green silk dress clung to every contour of her body, split on either side from ankle to waist, bare arms exposed by a sleeveless top, her shoulders and neck, by contrast, modestly hidden by a high choker neckline. Beneath her heavy make-up it was clear she was actually very beautiful. She was quick to notice Li’s appraisal and, as if by way of apology, said, ‘My stage outfit.’

Yongli seemed almost nervous in her company. Gone was the easy self-confidence and the twinkling smile. ‘I’ll get you a drink,’ he said, and he pulled up a chair for her.

‘Something soft,’ she said as she sat down. ‘Don’t want to be slurring my words when I’m singing.’ She smiled warmly at Li.

Yongli was looking around for the waitress from earlier, but she was nowhere to be seen. He seemed uncommonly agitated. ‘Where’s that damn girl gone?’ He tutted with irritation. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘No hurry,’ Lotus said. ‘I’m in good hands.’ She did not take her eyes from Li. Yongli hurried away across the gallery towards the stairs. ‘You got a cigarette?’ she asked. Li was aware of her strong Beijing accent, tongue curled back in the mouth to create the distinctive ‘R’ sound that formed almost in the throat. He held a pack open for her. She took one and he lit it. She drew deeply on it, threw her head back and blew a jet of smoke towards the ceiling. Then she levelled her gaze again and said, ‘You don’t like me much, do you?’

Li was taken aback by her directness. He had only met her a couple of times previously. He had always been polite, keeping, he had thought, his disapproval to himself. Perhaps Yongli had spoken to her of his friend’s feelings, or maybe she simply knew, by instinct, how a policeman might regard her. There seemed little point in denying it. ‘No,’ he said bluntly.

No sign of emotion rippled her exterior calm. She maintained a steady eye contact. ‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I know what you do. And I know what you are. That’s enough.’

When Yongli met her she had been working the joint-venture tourist hotels, raking in a high dollar income from wealthy businessmen with a taste for Asian girls. She had been based at the Jingtan when he started there as a chef the previous year, and he fell for her immediately.

‘What I was ,’ she said evenly. ‘What I did .’

‘I see,’ Li said coldly. ‘So what you earn here as a singer allows you to maintain the same income and lifestyle as before? That what you tell Ma Yongli, is it?’

She suddenly leaned forward and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Don’t you dare judge me!’ she snapped. ‘You know nothing about me. You don’t know what kind of life I’ve had, what kind of shit I’ve been through. I do what I have to do to survive. I don’t always like me. But Yongli does. He always has. And he’s never judged me. He treats me like no one’s ever treated me before. Like a princess. And there’s not many girls get to feel like that in their lives.’ She leaned back in her chair, breathing deeply to regain her composure. Then she said, quietly, ‘So if you think I’m bad for him, or that I don’t love him, you’re wrong. I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life. And I’d never do anything to hurt him.’