Tenzin, on the other hand, often had the lights shut off in her warehouse because she forgot to pay the bill. Sometimes it was days before she noticed. Bookkeeping was not her forte.
“Will anyone understand us here if we speak in English?” he asked.
“Probably not, but switch to Spanish if you want to be careful.”
He switched to Spanish.
“So, we’re moving a cache of valuables.”
“Yes. From Kashgar.”
“Which is close to Ürümqi?”
“It’s about fifteen hundred kilometers.”
Ben almost spit out his tea. “What?”
“It’ll take a day of driving or so to get there. The roads…” She waved a hand. “You know.”
“No, I don’t know.” He pushed back the annoyance. This was Tenzin, after all. The whole concept of driving amused and baffled her. “Why did we meet in Ürümqi instead of Kashgar? I saw connecting flights at the airport.”
“Because we have to pick up the truck here, of course.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, switching back to English and speaking quietly. “Okay, we’re starting from the beginning.”
Tenzin frowned. “I thought we were at the beginning.”
“Tenzin!”
“Okay. So impatient.”
She refilled both cups with tea and spooned a small portion of rice onto her plate.
“The person who is helping me has many shipping operations, including some that use trucks. He owes me a number of favors, so he has arranged a truck for us here in Ürümqi.”
“Has he arranged permits, too?” He took some more noodles. “I can’t imagine that you ship anything in China without a ton of permits.”
She waved a hand. “He assures me that the papers are taken care of and will be with the truck, along with a manifesto.”
“I think you mean manifest.”
“Yes, that. There will be crates with the truck with vegetables in them. Some of them will be empty. We will use these to pack my things.” She ate some of the rice and watched Ben finish off the noodles. He thought about ordering more, but then a second round of meat sticks came to the table.
Score.
Tenzin continued, but switched back to Spanish. “So Cheng has arranged all this here in Ürümqi. He does not have trucks in Kashgar, so we will have to drive it there.”
“So, it’s a day of driving through what are probably mountains and deserts where I’ve never driven before.”
“Maybe two days,” she mused. “I forget you have to sleep.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. He needed something stronger than tea.
“Yeah, Tenzin, I have to sleep. So when you say a day of driving, do you actually mean twenty-four hours?”
She frowned. “I think that’s what it will be. I’ll fly, of course, so—”
“Oh no. You’re not flying.”
She looked up from her plate. “Of course I am.”
“I don’t think so. If I’m driving a truck to get your stuff, then you’re riding with me.”
“I do not ride in human vehicles,” she said with a sneer.
“Then you can sit on the top of the damn cab, for all I care. But you’re not flying your vampire butt to Kashgar in a couple hours while I drive a big-ass truck for two days on my own. If you think that’s the deal, then I can catch a flight home tomorrow.”
She scrunched up her face. “You are not nearly as cooperative as Nima.”
“Nima had a staff of people at her beck and call, Tenzin.” He was really trying to be patient, but sometimes Tenzin just pissed him off. “Nima probably had contacts of her own, like Caspar does, who could arrange anything and everything for the right price. You have me. Who you dragged out here on false pretenses—”
“What is false?” she protested. “Your conversational Mandarin is appalling.”
“Wh—appalling?” His mouth gaped. “It is not appalling!”
She said nothing, just sat back in her chair and pursed her lips in silent judgement.
“Fine,” he said. “It’s not great. I still think appalling is a little strong. But we’re not in Beijing or Xi’an, Tenzin. You brought me here so you could have a human to help you get your stuff.”
“So?”
He sat back. “So what’s in it for me?”
Tenzin mirrored his posture, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes. A slight smile came to her lips. Tenzin loved to bargain.
“I’ll pay you,” she said.
“Not interested. I have plenty of money.” It was true. The trust fund Giovanni and Beatrice had set up grew every year, and he’d been investing his own money since he was seventeen.
Her eyes lit up. “You don’t want money?”
“Nope.”
And he had her. A bargain for something other than money was irresistible.
“What do you want then?” she mused. “What does my Benjamin want?”
He said nothing and let her speculate. Ben also ignored her use of the possessive pronoun, because that wasn’t somewhere he needed to go just then.
She leaned forward and sipped the honey-scented tea. “Gold.”
“The first thing you’re going to agree to is driving with me. If I’m in that truck, then you are, too.”
Tenzin cocked her head. “This is part of the price?”