From the next room my dad called, Kids, get in here. You have to see this.
We looked at each other and went to the den. Mouth agape, Dad pointed at the TV screen, where a downed airplane smoldered on a runway.
You must remember this crash, Detective, the one at SFO. The plane was carrying seventy Shanghainese students who’d enrolled in a San Francisco summer camp to learn English, as well as five of their teachers. At the time, I had yet to discover the role that counterfeit plane parts had played in the crash, but I recalled those da kuan sitting around the table, boasting about sending their kids to pricey camps like this one, in between oblique references to their other illegal dealings.
Together my dad, my brother, and I watched that plane land just short of the runway, striking the seawall, severing its tail as cleanly as a hot knife through butter.
According to the CNN reporter, two high school girls, best friends, had been ejected from their seats—their seat belts hadn’t been fastened. They died almost instantly. A shot of the school hosting the summer camp filled the screen. It was the one on Noe and Twenty-Fifth, blocks away from my house. How many times had I passed the colorful welcome banner shrouding the gate?
The longer I sat in front of the television, the more convinced I was that this story was personal, that it somehow belonged to me. Maybe it’s because this was every mom’s worst nightmare. Or maybe it’s more abstract than that—I’d gained a window into China and the way the whole country barreled ahead at breakneck pace, ignoring the cracks, and something about that ethos told me this plane had not crashed by chance.
When my brother suggested changing the channel, I voiced my dissent, unable to look away from the parents gathered in some nondescript Shanghai meeting hall, waiting to hear what had become of their children. All across the room, couples collapsed into each other’s arms, whether from grief or relief, it was impossible to tell.
But I apologize, Detective, this is getting off topic. I think we’ve covered the essentials about my visit home.
What’s that? You have my brother on record saying I told him about my work selling counterfeits? In the car when we went to pick up dinner?
No, that’s a complete misunderstanding. He didn’t mean it that way. It’s true I tried one last time to tell him, but he didn’t believe me. The whole thing sounded so outlandish he took it as a joke.
Let me explain. The same day we learned of the plane crash, Gabe and I went to pick up a couple of pizzas for dinner. We were in Dad’s car when another message from Winnie made my phone buzz.
Don’t worry, she wrote. I’ll take care of it.
I knew that she’d already sent her private investigator to dig up dirt on the journalist—anything that would coerce her into abandoning the article. I pictured a tenacious young woman, a year or two out of journalism school, hungry, eager, making barely minimum wage.
When Gabe asked who was on the phone, I was too weary to lie.
Winnie, I said. Remember her?
Winnie who?
Winnie my freshman roommate.
The one who cheated on her SATs?
That’s the one.
You’re still in touch?
I told him I worked for her now.
Oh yeah? Doing what?
I watched my brother check his blind spot before switching lanes. He still drove with only one hand, torso leaned all the way back in his seat, the very picture of a man who was pleasantly surprised by how well his life had turned out. And right then, Detective, I longed for even an ounce of his security, his ease.
Heart battering my chest, I said, Importing counterfeit designer handbags.
His head jerked toward me.
My vocal cords spasmed but I continued. It’s a whole scheme where we return fakes to department stores and sell the real bags on eBay.
I felt my facial muscles contort into a gruesome rictus, an effort to interpret the conflicting signals of relief and terror lighting up my brain.
My brother’s eyes bugged out, his forehead creased, and then he exploded with laughter. Good one, good one, he said. You’re a regular Bonnie and Clyde.
You got it, I said.
When he’d calmed down, he asked, What do you really do?
Contracts for her handbag manufacturing business. Boring stuff.
He turned into a strip mall and parked in front of the liquor store he’d frequented as an underage teen. I fumbled with the seat belt buckle. My fingers felt stiff and sore, as though stricken by arthritis.
Oh god, remember this place? he said, already moving on. Remember when Mom found that six-pack under my bed?
So, you see, Detective. Even though, yes, technically I confessed my crime to Gabe, there’s no way he absorbed what I’d said. In fact, I’m certain that he wouldn’t have recalled that part of our exchange if you hadn’t probed him.
Now if my mom, not Gabe, had been in the driver’s seat that day, then perhaps things would have unfolded differently.
What did you just say? she’d ask, deadly slow, after I’d spat out my confession.
Unable to backtrack, I would race through the whole repugnant story while she listened, first uncomprehendingly, and then gradually growing enraged.
Did this so-called friend of yours hold a knife to your neck and threaten to kill you if you didn’t comply? she’d demand. No? Then you weren’t forced. You chose to do it. You wretched girl, you stupid child. I’ve always had a bad feeling about that Winnie.
I would let my mother’s words pummel me; I’d submit to every one of her blows. And in that moment, despite her anger and disappointment, I’d no longer be alone.
I’ll take you to the police myself, she’d say, and my whole body would release.
Turn yourself in and face the consequences.
I know it took a bit longer than it should have, Detective, but I did finally listen to her, and I’m here now. What else can I tell you? What more do you need to know?
16
Four days after her double-eyelid procedure, Winnie unlocks the front door to the sound of her burner phone ringing in the bedroom. She turns the dead bolt and hurries toward it, shedding her sunglasses. The number that flashes on the screen is local, one she doesn’t recognize. She rejects the call before remembering the only other person besides Ava who has this number—the marketing and PR strategist she’s hired to do some preliminary work for the new diamond venture. He’s done a day early; she’s not surprised. Here in China, no task is ever deemed impossible, no demand too extreme, no deadline too tight. There’s always someone younger, scrappier, hungrier, willing to work harder, faster, longer. Need a high-speed rail station in nine hours? Or a 1,300-ton bridge in a day and half? Not a problem. Done and done.
It’s one of the reasons she’s hiding out in Beijing, despite Ava’s initial incredulity.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ava said during that last conversation before Winnie boarded her flight out of LAX. “Anywhere but there.”
Winnie argued that her homeland checked all the boxes: no extradition treaty with the US, no chance of the Chinese police cooperating with their American counterparts. In Beijing, Winnie is far enough away from Dongguan to hide from the Maks, yet close enough to keep tabs on them. Because it’s imperative that the Maks believe their business is thriving, that all is well. The entire plan hinges on Boss Mak boarding a plane in three hours and arriving in San Francisco for his medical appointment—the only person important enough to give up in Winnie’s place, the key to securing a lighter sentence for Ava.