We hung around for a little while to see if we could spy the Filipina nurse coming out of the building but she never showed her face. There were too many orderlies who knew our faces and we decided not to risk it any further and left the area. I made a move to get into the back seat.

“Sit in front,” he instructed.

A WOMAN’S SCREAM

We continued east to Arcadia where the owner of the Victorian property had its office. My old real estate agent was growing tired of tracking down information for me on houses that I never intended to buy but she couldn’t risk telling me so on the off chance I was legitimately interested in playing the market.

Hector and I found the building, which was more a storefront than an actual office. On its left was a brilliantly-lit dumpling house doing a brisk business before lunch had even started. From the looks of the clientele and cars in the lot, it catered to scores of young Asians capping off a night of cruising and clubs with steaming baskets of pork shao mai. On its right was an old lady’s brassiere shop that hadn’t changed the display window in thirty years and was the heroic stalwart from an era and community that wasn’t coming back.

We pulled into an open slot and studied the storefront. The door and windows were heavily tinted and obscured whatever “business” lay beyond it. We went up to the front entrance but the door was locked and our knocks went unanswered. I cupped my hands over the glass to try to see beyond the tint but got nothing but black. I stepped back and noticed faces in the reflection of the glass. I turned to see a group of young Asian men surrounding us. At the middle of the circle was Gao Li.

Gao’s initial reaction surprised me. He was more afraid than angry and he glanced around the parking lot like he expected there to be more people coming.

“Where’s the cavalry?” he asked, but I didn’t understand the reference. When he realized there were none, he got his legs under him and returned to his old self. “You’re blocking my door, asshole.”

Gao brushed by me and unlocked the front entrance.

“We wanted to talk to you about an old building in Alhambra. It’s filled with a bunch of Chinese women and babies. But I don’t remember seeing any sign about it being a hospital.”

My words spooked a few of his cronies to peel off, and even Gao looked a little unsure but he masked it well.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“The owner of the building is a corporation that lists this address,” I said and pointed to the building behind him.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said and took a step inside.

“How much do you charge?” I called after him. “I’m sure it’s not cheap.” One aspect of Gao’s New China narrative, one he conveniently left out, was that despite the economic boom vaulting many Chinese into the upper levels of wealth, it didn’t mean they actually wanted to raise their families there.

“What do they come over on, tourist visas?” I pressed. “Spend a few weeks in that dump, deliver their babies and leave with U.S. citizenship. Not a bad deal, depending on the price.”

“Take off before you regret it,” Gao responded coldly.

Hector didn’t like his tone and took a step forward. I reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.

“Hold up, Hector. It’s not worth it.”

Gao cocked his head.

“What’d you say?” he asked but he directed it at Hector, not me. Gao seemed to be doing a calculation in his head and when he finally came to his answer he took a bold step forward. “Hector Hermosillo?” he asked. “Hector Hermosillo?” he repeated again.

I didn’t like the feeling at that moment and instinctively pulled Hector towards me. Gao and his cronies started to form a circle around us. I used a car pulling into the lot as a way to put some distance between us and kept pushing Hector in the back, guiding him towards the car. My phone buzzed in my pocket.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jeanette’s father shouted before I could even get off a hello.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you harassing Mr. Li?”

I looked around the parking lot expecting to see Jeff watching us watching Gao. I didn’t find him.

“I’m not following. We’re here in Arcadia outside his office.”

“What?!” he screamed. “You’re where?”

“In Arcadia.”

“Get out of there before you ruin it entirely!”

“Ruin what?” I asked.

“Just get out.”

Not that I needed any encouragement to leave the area, but his tone grated on me. And I didn’t appreciate how he felt the need to boss me around.

“Calm down,” I told him. “We’ll come to your office.”

***

The foundation’s main entry was unlocked. We found Jeff in his office as he pored over a sheath of papers. There was a new installation behind him. It was the extreme close-up of a woman’s face projected onto a ten-by-ten screen. Although she remained very still there were slight movements, a twitch here and there to clue you in that it wasn’t a still photograph but an actual video. After about a minute I caught her first blink. She looked Nordic, had cold, dull eyes and stared impassively at the void before her. After the last installation this work must have been a welcomed respite.

“Nice piece,” I commented, but Jeff was in no mood to talk art.

“Are you fucking with me?” he shouted.

“Take it easy.”

“What did I ever do to you?” It wasn’t necessarily a rhetorical question but it was still one of those you didn’t need to, or want to, answer. “Seriously,” he persisted, “what did I ever do to you?”

“Mr. Schwartzman—”

“Don’t ‘mister’ me, all right? Pretending to be all business-like after you’ve fucked me over. I welcomed you into this office. I told you things and was very forthright about everything. And you sat there and listened and then went and stabbed me in the back. I thought we were cut from the same cloth. And now you’re pulling out the formalities.”

“We’re all cut from the same cloth,” I told him.

“This isn’t a joke.”

“It wasn’t meant to be a joke.”

“Why is he here?” he questioned with an outstretched finger pointed in Hector’s direction. He might as well have been pointing to a three-day old carcass rotting in the sun, the way he refused to turn his head fully in Hector’s direction, as if wary of being overcome by the foul stench of rotting flesh. Before he would allow me to explain, Jeff commanded that Hector leave the room.

“Let’s just relax and talk like adults,” I said.

“You ruined the museum for me,” he started on another tangent.

“I didn’t ruin anything,” I countered.

Jeff was a one-punch fighter. He took his shot and if it didn’t land, he either ran or moved on to find a heavier weapon. His armory was running thin because he was already reverting to the pity club.

“Gao doesn’t want anything to do with me,” he moaned. “He called me and said we’re through. That he won’t support the ballot initiative. He thinks it’s a trick. He thinks I am in on it with the old man.” I thought about how the direction of this great city could so easily be altered by a cryptically-worded ballot initiative started by one unstable man and promoted by an equally-yet-differently-unstable man. “How crazy is this world?” he asked as if he could hear my thoughts, but he was referencing something else altogether. “The guy I’d rather see dead as my partner in crime,” he laughed. I couldn’t tell if he had forgotten Hector was in the room or he made that comment on purpose. “What the hell did you say to Gao to get him to think that?”

I recapped my first uncomfortable meeting when Gao thought I was coming to see him with a peace offer from Valenti. “I don’t know how he got that idea,” I said, watching for Jeff’s reaction. There wasn’t much, but I was still certain he had helped foment the idea in one of their many discussions. “Today’s meeting was a little unexpected. There was a building in Alhambra, an old Victorian with several Chinese occupants.”