“Lots of hoeing.” Zhou swung his hands up and down. “What do you say our friend Jiang buys us a drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” Wen slurred.

Zhou reached into the unconscious man’s pocket and took out his wallet. Finding his resident identity card, he memorized Jiang’s full name and address. He replaced the wallet, but not before retrieving a twenty-yuan banknote, which he handed to Wen. “You drink for me,” Zhou said. “It is late, and I must go.”

“Yes, my friend Tsen, if you say so.” Wen raised himself in his chair with some difficulty.

“See you at the mine,” Zhou said.

“The mine?” Wen asked. He looked up in puzzlement, but the little farmer from Baotou was already gone.

Chapter 33

33

JIANG XIANTO, THE TRUCK DRIVER, CREPT OUT OF his apartment complex at half past seven the next morning. A bandage was plastered across his forehead, and he walked with rigid strides to try to minimize the spasms that shot through his skull with each step. Had he been less preoccupied, he might have seen his assailant from the Red Boar, seated in a Chinese-built Toyota parked across the street, reading a People’s Daily.

Zhou smiled to himself as he watched Jiang hobble down the street. He had felt no joy in flooring Yao the night before, but he felt no empathy toward Jiang. He had recognized Jiang’s type instantly, a hotheaded loser who tormented weaker men to make himself feel better.

The black market truck driver walked down the street to a crowded bus stop. True to form, Jiang bullied his way to the front of the line, then took one of the few remaining seats when the bus arrived. Zhou started his car and pulled into traffic, keeping the bus a few car lengths ahead.

By the time the bus stopped in front of a dilapidated apartment building at the southern edge of town, most of the passengers had departed. Zhou wheeled his car around a corner, parked behind a street vendor, and watched Jiang step off the bus. Pulling a brimmed hat low over his eyes, Zhou locked his car and followed on foot.

Jiang walked a little way down a side street, then turned into a trash-strewn alley. A morning breeze chilled the air, and Jiang zipped up his jacket as he reached a large fenced lot topped with rusty barbed wire. He stepped through a slit in the fence and walked past stacks of empty pallets that towered over the dusty lot. At the rear of the property, beneath a corrugated tin awning, stood five large canvas-covered trucks and a battered pickup. Several rough-looking men stood around the trucks, drinking hot tea from paper cups.

“Jiang,” one of the men said, “did your wife brush your hair with a wok this morning?”

“I’ll brush yours with a tire iron,” Jiang said. “Where’s Xao?”