"Mr. Guo, this is the postcard that Mr. Chen left here for you."
"Great, thank you."
"My pleasure."
Once the lobby manager stepped away, Bruce flipped the card open.
There wasn't much written on it.
Old Guo, I'm heading back home.
I wanted to come say goodbye, but by the time I got here, you'd already checked out. That's a shame.
Just in case, I left this postcard at the front desk, along with my MSN and Yahoo email. If you ever see it, make sure you get in touch.
Your fellow inmate,
Chen Zhen
"Fellow inmate? That's what he went with?"
Bruce couldn't help laughing under his breath.
Still, beneath the amusement, there was a faint warmth too.
After carefully reading the MSN and Yahoo address on the card, he tucked it away in his pocket almost with care.
He had been about to turn toward the hotel restaurant when another thought suddenly surfaced.
Hua's Restaurant.
The place where he and Chen Zhen had once gotten into that fight.
And the moment he thought of it, he could almost taste the food again.
That honest, home-style Chinese cooking.
The craving rose fast enough that it took over his whole mind. Since he had nothing urgent to do, he didn't hesitate for long. He left the Waldorf, hailed a cab, and headed back to the place where they had eaten before.
But when he got there, he stopped short.
The location was the same.
Everything else was different.
The Hua's Restaurant sign was gone. The glass in both the door and the windows had been smashed out and left scattered across the ground. Looking in through what was left of the window frame, he saw garbage everywhere, across the floor, over the chairs, across the tables. In the summer heat, the place gave off a sour, rotten smell.
Bruce frowned.
Just then, an older Chinese woman passed by carrying what looked like groceries. He stepped forward and politely stopped her.
She instinctively took two steps back, wary at first, but once she got a better look at his face, some of the caution left her expression.
"Excuse me, ma'am. Do you know why Hua's Restaurant closed?"
Bruce's fluent Mandarin lowered her guard even more. Hearing your own language abroad always made people soften a little.
"You know Old Hua?"
Bruce nodded.
"I do. I used to come here pretty often. His cooking was excellent."
"It really was," the woman said with a sigh. Then her face darkened. "Such a shame. Those damn gang punks ruined his business for good."
"Gang punks?"
"Yeah. I don't know how his son got on their bad side, but they kept coming back over and over. Smashing windows, throwing filth into the place, causing trouble every few days. After a while, who was still going to come eat here? Once the customers stopped coming, the restaurant was finished."
Bruce's brow tightened.
"I remember his son being pretty tough."
"He is. I even saw him beat a bunch of them so badly once they could barely run." For a moment, she looked grimly satisfied. Then she shook her head again. "But strong or not, that kind of trouble never ends. They stopped fighting him face-to-face. Started sneaking around at night instead, after the old man and his son had gone to bed. Smash things, run off, come back later, do it again. You can only keep repairing a place so many times before it drains you dry."
"And the police didn't do anything?"
She snorted.
"Police? You think the police here are like the ones back home? Half the time they're useless, and by the time they show up, the troublemakers are long gone."
Bruce nodded silently.
That was how it usually went. Ordinary people with no money and no influence always ended up taking the worst of it. If Hua Lei hadn't known how to fight, he probably would have been beaten half to death by now.
The woman studied him for a second, then said, "You're a friend of Old Hua's, aren't you? I know where they're living now. Want me to take you?"
"Yes, please."
She seemed like someone who hadn't had a real conversation with a fellow Chinese person in a long time, because she chatted the whole way there.
When they finally stopped, she pointed up toward one of the entrances to an old apartment block.
"This is it. Go in through there. Third floor, apartment 302. They should still be there."
"Thank you, Auntie."
"No need. It's been a long time since I had a nice talk like that." She sighed. "If it weren't for my son, I'd have left this country ages ago."
Then she walked off with her basket, disappearing into the entrance across the way.
Bruce watched her go, then turned back to the building in front of him.
It looked a lot like an old urban-village block from back home. Large sheets of paint had peeled from the walls, exposing the bricks beneath. Graffiti was scrawled across parts of it in rough shapes he couldn't make sense of. Trash had piled up in the corners.
He headed inside.
The stairwell was in terrible shape. The steps were chipped and worn, and there wasn't a light anywhere. Even in daytime, it was dim enough to feel like the set of a low-budget horror film.
Following the directions the woman had given him, he found apartment 302.
He checked the number, confirmed it was the right place, and knocked.
No response.
Bruce frowned.
Just as he raised his hand to knock again, the door flew open with a violent bang from the inside.
"You bastards...!"
A baseball bat cut through the air toward him.
Then everything stopped.
"Benefactor?"
Bruce stared at the man in front of him.
Hua Lei.
The bat was frozen in his grip, less than four inches above Bruce's head.
A chill ran all the way down Bruce's spine. Fine sweat broke instantly across his forehead.
With Hua Lei's build, if that swing had landed, the lightest outcome would have been a severe concussion.
The worst outcome didn't need saying.
"Benefactor, I didn't know it was you!" Hua Lei yanked the bat back in panic, his face full of alarm. "I thought those bastards were back again."
Bruce looked at the huge, heavily built man now standing there with the expression of a child who knew he'd made a terrible mistake.
What was he supposed to say?
In the end, he just shook his head.
He had been unlucky, that was all.
At least he was still standing.
"Where's Old Hua?"
"He's inside, resting. Please, come in."
Bruce nodded and stepped through the doorway.
The apartment was old and cramped, a one-bedroom place with a living room and bathroom, probably under fifty square meters total. In the living room, they had set up a rough wooden bed with one broken leg propped up, and next to it on the floor was a pallet that was clearly where Hua Lei had been sleeping.
The kitchen and bedroom corners were cluttered with cooking tools, oil, salt, sauce bottles, and various kitchen supplies. It was obvious they had salvaged whatever they could from the restaurant and brought it here.