“You’re a doctor?”
“A student. Hearn to be a doctor.”
“You’re going to stay in this country?”
“Only for school,” said Jing Yo.
“I’ll bet.”
The man shoved the passport back at him. Jing Yo took that as a sign that he was cleared to go. He took his bags and moved on, passing through the dimly lit hall with its grimy walls and well-scuffed floor. A set of double doors swung open ahead, activated by a motion detector. He walked through and found himself going up a ramp into a large hall cluttered with voices and echoing sounds. People were standing at the edge of a velvet rope, looking anxiously for relatives. Drivers held up cardboard signs with names: smith, fenton, bozzone.
srisai.
The crowd swelled at the end of the rope. Jing Yo walked through it, circling around to see if he had been followed. It was hard to tell in the terminal — there were so many people, and many places to hide or appear otherwise engaged. He pulled his bag with him, circling around a set of chairs, then edged back into the crowd.
“I am Srisai,” he said to the man holding the small cardboard sign.
The man jerked around, surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I missed you.”
His accent was difficult to understand, but he took Jing Yo’s bag and led him out through the main doors.
It would be easy for him to kill me when we reach the car, thought Jing Yo as they walked through the parking garage. He let himself fall a step behind, glancing left and right to make sure he wasn’t being watched.
The trunk on a black Cadillac opened as they approached. Jing Yo’s stomach knotted in an instant.
There is no way but the Way, he told himself. You must surrender to your fate.
The driver touched another button on his key fob, and the car started.
“So, your hotel?” said the man, slapping the trunk down.
“The Janus Ambassador,” said Jing Yo.
“Nice place,” said the driver.
Jing Yo opened the back door to the car and slipped inside. The driver seemed to remember belatedly that he was supposed to have done that, and rushed over to close it.
“Long flight?” asked the driver as he pulled out of the parking spot. He was Hispanic, and spoke with an accent that was difficult for Jing Yo to understand.
“Yes.”
“Visit here on pleasure or business?”
“I am a student,” said Jing Yo.
“Ah. What do you study?”
“Medicine.”
“You are a doctor?”
“A student.”
“A good thing, to be a doctor.”
The man began talking about a cousin or a nephew — Jing Yo had trouble understanding — who wanted to be a doctor but was having difficulties with his undergraduate classes. The man seemed content to talk without any encouragement, and Jing Yo let him talk. He looked out the window at the early-morning traffic, taking in New York.
It was his first visit, not just to the city, but to any part of the Americas.
His first glimpses were less impressive than he had imagined. The airport was ancient, not even close to Beijing’s. The buildings along the highway were mostly small and dirty — again, he compared them to Beijing and found them wanting.
There was one place where New York had an advantage. The thick brown fog that hung over the Chinese capital wasn’t present here. The sky this morning was about three-quarters filled with clouds, but they were bright white, inviting instead of threatening. And behind them was an azure blue that reminded him of a dress Hyuen Bo had worn the first time he saw her.
Jing Yo held his breath, trying to push the memory away. He felt the pressure in his lungs, urging it to replace the sorrow. He pushed his chin to his chest, the pressure growing.
Or revenge. Revenge was an easier thought.
“We’ll take the tunnel,” said the driver.
Jing Yo let go of the breath. His head tingled, blood resuming its normal flow.
“The tunnel is okay?” asked the driver, a little concerned.
“The way you think is the best.”
“Your hotel is on the East Side, so we will do better getting out there,” said the driver. “We could go different ways. At this hour sometimes there isn’t much difference. The traffic can back up unexpectedly. Would you like some coffee?”
The question caught Jing Yo by surprise. He was not sure, at first, what the words meant. Or rather, he knew the words, but wondered if there was another meaning.
“Coffee?” said Jing Yo finally.
“Breakfast. Would you like to stop for breakfast?”
Was this a spur-of-the-moment question? Jing Yo wondered. Or was it part of a plan? The man was almost surely a hired driver, with no knowledge of anything. But…
“Do you have a place?” Jing Yo asked, leaning forward against the front seat.
The man waved his hand. “There are many places.”
“I do not drink coffee,” said Jing Yo, not sure whether the man was actually trying to get him to a meeting place or was just being hospitable.
“Tea, then?”
“Can I get tea at the hotel?” asked Jing Yo.
“Oh, I’m sure you can. We’ll just go there,” said the driver.
They drove through an electronic toll booth at the entrance to the tunnel, a large sign proclaiming the toll in red lights: $50. Jing Yo stared at the words beneath the sign, trying to decipher them:
toll doubled at high traffic times.
“The toll is higher because of traffic?” Jing Yo said to the driver.
The man laughed. “In a way. It’s always fifty except from one to three. They pass the law to double it, but then they change the hours. A racket. To raise money by Billionaire Mayor. Always rackets. Bogus.”
The tunnel was narrow, with yellow lights and large, old-fashioned tiles that reminded Jing Yo of the shower room at his army training camp. The pavement was uneven, with jagged cracks running from side to side. Suddenly, the driver braked and blared his horn. A man had darted into the road. He ran in front of the car, something black under his arm.
Jing Yo turned toward the door, ready, sure he was being ambushed. “Go!” he hissed in Chinese. “Don’t stop! Get us out of here.”
The driver gave another blast of the horn, then hit the gas. “I don’t blame you for cursing,” he said when they were well past. “That jackass.”
Jing Yo said nothing, still unsure of what had happened.
“Risking his life for a muffler,” continued the driver. “And what will he get for it? Five hundred dollars, if that. If it was his muffler, it would be different. Weld it back on the car. But you can tell it wasn’t his muffler. Do you know what it cost my boss to replace the muffler on this? Two thousand dollars. That was just the muffler. Two years ago, ten times less…”
The driver moved on to other complaints. Jing Yo sat silently, trying to recover. His heart was pounding.
It would take him time to find his balance here, he thought. He might never find it.
