Demon Box

“No, I’m serious. Consider the terrific publicity, the headlines: Shoe Company Smuggles Track Defector Out of Red China. I mean think of it. A couple years at Oregon under a good trainer he’ll win the Boston Marathon! Sell a zillion damn shoes! I saw the stats. He went from a 2:06 at 35 km to 2:29 at the finish. That’s 4:53 a mile for the last leg of a marathon, a world-record pace. The kid’s a treasure, I’m telling you, a diamond that will never be cut without the proper training. Consider it. It’s in the kid’s best interests.

The editor nodded, considering it, especially the zillion shoes and the dawning oriental market. The photog had reservations.

“Even if the kid goes for it, how would we get him out? You saw the paperwork at that airport. What’s he gonna use for a passport?”

“Bling’s.”

“Just a minute!”

“With little Bling’s passport and a scarf around his throat—‘the boy cannot talk, comrade; that long run: laryngitis’—he could make it.”

“Just a goddamned minute, what makes you think that little Bling is gonna hand over his passport?”

“Because the mag pays little Bling to keep quiet, put on the nice blue warm-ups with the nice hood, and catch the milk plane home to Qufu or wherever.”

“Pays Bling how much?” Bling wanted to know.

“I’d say a thousand Yankee bucks would cover the flight and expenses.”

Now the editor wants to wait just one goddamn minute. Bling was getting behind it, though—“With another say five hundred for the flight back?”—and the photog was already laying out a mental paste-up for Sports Illustrated: shot of kid getting off plane at Eugene, meeting Bowerman at Hayward Field, shaking hands at the state capitol, golden pioneer gleaming in the background…

“Let’s have a gander at your passport picture, Bling.”

“No less than three thousand Chinese yuan! That’s a reasonable compromise, not much more than a thousand bucks!”

“A Chinese Communist Pittsburgh Shylock!”

“How will we make the pitch? We’ve got to get him off from his coaches—”

“We’ll get him to come on our Great Wall tour tomorrow!” cried the photographer, adding another page to his paste-up. “What do you think, Mr. Editor?”

“For starters, Bling doesn’t look a thing like him,” the editor observed. “The eyes are different. The noses. Let’s see the passport picture, Bling, because I think that even if you disguised the kid, a customs officer would take one look and—”

He stopped, gawking into the open passport.

“In God’s name, Bling; how did you get them to allow a passport photo of you wearing those goofy glasses?”

“They’re prescription,” Bling explained.

When they saw the kid in the banquet hall they veered to his table and congratulated him again, each giving him the wishbone pinky handclasp of their growing conspiracy. Bling translated their invitation about the trip to the Great Wall. The boy blinked and blushed and looked at his coach for advice. The coach explained that it would not be possible; all the Chinese runners were scheduled to visit the National Agricultural Exhibition Center tomorrow. But thank you for so kind.

By the time they got to their table Bling and the writer had cooked up a number of alternative meets where they might make their pitch to the boy in private—Bling would follow him to the bathroom… Bling would tell him there was a phone call in the lobby—but it was that master of surprises, Mr. Mude, who came forward to further their fantasy.

“The coaches spoke of your thoughtful invitation to our little minority friend,” Mude said as he stopped at their table. Tonight he was wearing a very informal sports jacket, no tie. “I talked to Mr. Wenlao and Mr. Quisan about it, and we all think it would make very good media for both our nations. Also, we are told our little Yang has never seen the Great Wall. China owes her young hero an excursion, don’t you agree?”

They nodded agreement. Mude asked how their story was progressing. Better and better, the writer told him. Mude chatted a few moments more, then excused himself.

“Forgive me, but is that not the Tanzanian that tripped the American? I must go congratulate him. As to our young minority boy, I shall see that all the arrangements are made for your convenience. Good night.”

“Oh, shit,” mumbled the editor when Mude had walked on. “Oh, shit.”