their money out before Putin stopped them, computer company execs from India. Moguls near and far, not all of whom realized that the 'eightieth-floor' penthouses were quite an achievement for a building only sixty-nine stories high.
The limo pulled to a stop outside this building and the men walked Ray to an unmarked side entrance manned by two guards. The intercom buzzed them through and a moment later they stood in an enormous elevator. The men kept the floor display panel hidden from Ray, so he counted seconds. He knew from his training that they were rising about forty feet per second, which put them close to the forty-eighth floor when the elevator stopped. They proceeded to a marbled foyer and arrived in a huge living room with a view over Columbus Circle and northeast to Central Park.
A Chinese man of about thirty, very slender in a tailored black suit, emerged from another room. His eyes flicked over Ray's work boots, old jeans, and green T-shirt.
'Thank you Mr. Ray for coming to see me,' he said, waving at the sofas, an enormous gold watch around his wrist.
They sat. The other men moved to the back of the room and stood.
'My name is Chen,' said the man. 'I have big problem. And I want you to fix this problem.'
Ray was silent.
'This is my problem,' he went on. 'You were boyfriend for my sister, Jin Li. She works for me in New York City. She tells us about you. Everything about you. She loves you very much, everything like that. Then maybe four days ago, she not appear.'
'Disappeared?' said Ray. 'How do you know?'
'Let me finish talking to you.'
'Fine.'
'That's right,' Chen growled. 'Fine for you, fine for me.'
Ray started to say something, thought better of it.
'So I will talk now. You listen. Jin Li calls me in China. Very upset. Like that. Two girls that they are with her get killed in their car. The men in the Brooklyn village, they put the shit in the car. But not my sister. Nobody find her. This does not surprise me too much, Mr. Ray. She is, what do you say, self-reliant. Too self-reliant, maybe you know. She leave our family and come to United State. I give her job running my company here and then she not appear. That is my problem. The American police do not know who kill the two girls.'
'I wouldn't be so sure.'
'I am sure. I pay people to tell some things.'
'You can pay people, but that doesn't mean they know.'
'I am paying a man who knows all these things!'
Ray shrugged.
'Do you know about this bad thing that happened?'
Ray shook his head. He wasn't following the news much these days.
'The American police do not know my sister was in that car. I read the New York City Daily News on the Internet in my country. You can still do that if you know what to do. China government say one big thing, everybody do the other thing, the little thing. The paper only say two Mexico girls, where they put the shit into the car. Very bad. Jin Li, she call me and then she does not go to work, like I say before. I have to tell somebody to run my business. That is big problem just like that. Where is Jin Li, I say. She is good at the business for me. I talk with my lawyer in Chinatown. He say if you ask American police to look for Jin Li they will ask too many question. Just like China! I do not like too many question. I am boss, I have the question. In China we do not like the police. We do not trust them. I do not trust polices anywhere. I want to know where is Jin Li but I cannot find her in this city.'
'I'm sure there are plenty of good Chinese private investigators in the city, retired detectives, people like that.'
'That is what my lawyer say. Are you a lawyer, too?'
'No,' answered Ray.
'So my lawyer get some man to look in her apartment, look at her bank, look at her money, and everything. We do this, we do what he say. Nothing. She is really really hiding, you know what I mean? Or maybe she is dead but how come they do not find the body? I do not think she is dead. She call us, like I say to you. She is upset. This is what she is. Then she did not call anymore to us. But I ask myself why her white boyfriend does not look too much for her? Why he not asking her friends, where is Jin Li? Have you seen her? Maybe he does not love her so much today. That is what my lawyer say. White boy, Chinese girl, no big deal, right?'
'You want me to talk now?' Ray asked.
'No.' Chen pointed at one of his men and said something in Chinese. The man left the room. Then Chen turned back to Ray. 'Here is what I think. She is hiding somewhere-place and you know where, Mr. Ray, you help her now.'
'I don't. I have no idea where she is.'
'Then why you do not ask about her and everything like that?'
'I didn't know she was missing.'
'I do not believe you.'
'I haven't spoken to her for a couple of weeks, and she stopped returning my calls. In America, we call this getting dumped. And you know, we only saw each other a few months. She didn't tell me much about herself.'
Chen smiled hatefully. 'Maybe you were too busy fucking my sister in the pussy to ask so many question.'
'She didn't seem to mind.'
'You like the Chinese pussy? You like how tight it is, Mr. Ray? Not like the big fat white-' Chen's interest was distracted by the return of the man who had departed; he carried a cardboard box. The man set it down in front of Chen, who inspected its contents, nodded, and then looked back at Ray. 'Let me tell you some extra things. We know many informations about you, Mr. Ray Grant. We pay lot of money to retired NYPD detectives who tell us about you. We know your father was New York City detective. Sixty-three Precinct. There are many people who do not like him. Right now someone could walk into his room and shoot him.'
'He's dying. He might even prefer to be shot.'
'Maybe yes. But you do not. You want to be with him,' Chen ventured, watching Ray's expression. 'You need this man, your father, I think to myself.'
They'd been watching him for the last few days, Ray realized, running groceries, in and out of the house. Knew when he was there and when he wasn't. Did they also know he was with the woman, then put their plan into motion? Possibly. Barged in to find his father peacefully in bed watching the Yankees game, Gloria sitting next to him. Ray had let himself get distracted. How he hated himself for that now. 'I can't help you,' he said. 'I'm just the guy who was banging your sister, no more, no less.'
'I am going to pay you to find her.'
'Sorry, not interested.'
Chen's right hand played with the gold watch on his left wrist, his small index finger rubbing an intimate circle on the face. 'I will pay lot of money. I have lot of money and I will pay lot of money to find her.'
Ray looked at Chen directly. 'Not interested.'
'What will motivation you?'
'Nothing will motivation me. I'm not interested.' This wasn't true; he was now quite interested in finding Jin Li, but on his terms, not her brother's.
Chen didn't respond. Instead he pulled a toothpick from his breast pocket and picked at his teeth. Finished, he inspected the toothpick for dental residue, then laid it carefully on the glass table. One of the beefy men standing at the back of the room came forward with a waste-basket and plucked the toothpick up and dropped it into the basket. Then he took out a tissue and wiped the glass table clean.
Chen pointed over Ray's head. 'When they sell me this apartment they say the window do not open too much. They say something about cold air-conditions and the architect design. Special glass that is shiny. I say I pay so much American money for this apartment, you say I cannot have window that is open? Everybody say New York is big deal, number-one city. I say no. New York no big deal, too old. Not too smart. China smarter. Shanghai much more smarter. You come to my country, you find out. In Shanghai I get window that is open when I push it. I say this to big New York architects. They say this is one-billion-dollar building, most expensive in New York City ever. I
