4 Years Ago.
In the last days of 1982, Sean Xiao kept having the same nightmare: that Li Xian wasn't dead.
Sean Xiao had watched Li Xian eat the cyanide-laced hamburger that Liu Shifu had brought to the York Motel. He had seen Li Xian's eyes "go goofy" as he fell back on the bed and clutched his throat. He was the one who had taken the lamp cord and finished the job, strangling Li Xian until he stopped struggling. He had rolled Li Xian's lifeless body off the bed and helped Shifu get him into the bed frame, covering him with the box spring and mattress. But lying in bed, staring at the cracked ceiling in another motel room, Sean Xiao began to wonder: Could Li Xian still be alive.
On Christmas Eve, in Room 55 at the Skyview Motel in Fort Lee, Sean Xiao was jittery. He was stuck there, afraid to move, afraid to leave the room. Liu Shifu had paid for the room but again left him with no money. Sean Xiao kept the TV on to keep him company, but there was only a lot of dopey Christmas stuff on, cartoons and crap. He left it on, though, because the silence of the night made him nervous. He dozed off on the bed with his clothes on and the television going. That's when he had the nightmare for the first time.
Li Xian hadn't died. He was under that bed, but he wasn't dead. He was reaching out, trying to get out from under the mattress and box spring. He was struggling and moaning. Sean Xiao was lying on that bed, sleeping, tossing and turning, having the nightmare. Beneath him, Li Xian was on his back, reaching up. Sean Xiao wanted to escape, but he couldn't move. Suddenly Li Xian's rotting hands emerged from the mattress on either side of Sean Xiao's face—
Sean Xiao's eyes shot open, and he bolted off the bed. He stared at the mattress, looking for Li Xian's hands. He was drenched in sweat.
On Christmas Day, not knowing who to turn to, Sean Xiao called his ex-wife, Cao Feifei, and asked her to come down for a while. Terrified herself, knowing what she knew about Li Xian's murder, she told him she didn't think that was such a good idea. He begged her, but she refused. He was getting low on cigarettes, he told her, he had no money, and he needed a drink bad. An alcoholic who'd been trying to reform, Sean Xiao had started drinking again. His ex-wife kept saying no, she couldn't come down and be with him. She was too scared.
Sean Xiao spent the day alone in Room 55, fighting the urge for a drink and a cigarette, flipping channels on the TV, avoiding that bed.
That night he dozed off on the armchair and had the nightmare again. He didn't get much sleep.
The next day Cao Feifei changed her mind and went to the motel to be with Sean Xiao, but he wasn't there.
Afraid that he might be dead, too, she called the only other place she thought he could be, "the store." She asked if Sean Xiao or Shifu had been around, but no one had seen either of them lately.
Later that day she returned to the motel and found Sean Xiao in his room. He said he'd gone out for a long walk, anything not to be cooped up in that room. She could see that he was a mess. He couldn't stop talking about how he and Shifu had killed her cousin Li Xian, begging her to listen to all the gory details. But she didn't want to hear about it. She had her own problems.
Zhang Xiaohua was still in jail, and she had all those kids to take care of by herself. Anyway, the whole thing about what they'd done to Li Xian made her sick. But Sean Xiao had to tell somebody. If he didn't let it out, he'd go crazy, he said. She tried to get him to change the subject, but he wouldn't. He wanted her to go to Li Xian's house that night and ask Veronica Li, if her husband had returned home. Cao Feifei thought her ex-husband had finally snapped, but Sean Xiao insisted that she do it. He had to know if Li Xian was really dead.
As she tried to reason with him, the phone suddenly rang, and they both froze. Sean Xiao picked it up. It was Shifu. He wanted them to meet him right now at the Fort Lee Diner, a five-minute drive from the motel. They were both too scared to disobey.
Shifu wasn't there when they arrived, so they waited in the parking lot. It wasn't long before the white Cadillac with the blue top pulled into the lot. Shifu motioned for them to get into his car, but Cao Feifei shook her head. She was terrified of him.
Liu Shifu didn't like people saying no to him. He jumped out of the car, enraged, and snatched Cao Feifei by the wrist. Where the hell did she get off calling "the store" and asking about him? he wanted to know.
Sean Xiao tried to defend her, but he knew better than to challenge Shifu.
But then, as suddenly as he had erupted, Shifu calmed down and suggested they go into the diner and have something to eat so they could talk. Sean Xiao was suspicious. Why was he being so nice all of a sudden.
Inside, over coffee, Shifu explained his problem with this whole situation. He couldn't go on carrying Sean Xiao indefinitely, paying for motel rooms and bringing him food every day. Sean Xiao had to start pulling his own weight because he just couldn't afford it. He suggested that Cao Feifei take Sean Xiao to a liquor store so he could hold it up.
After they left the diner and Shifu departed, Sean Xiao told his ex-wife that he knew of a convenience store up in Sussex County that would be easy to knock off, the Ding Dairy Store in Hardystown. Forget it, she told him. Her uncle worked there now. She didn't want him getting hurt. Sean Xiao pleaded with her, promising that he wouldn't hurt anyone, but she stuck to her guns. She dropped him off back at the motel and headed home. She wasn't going to help him rob stores. She already had more trouble than she needed.