The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

by David Rotenberg

  “It’s so. This past week I’ve had six new faces and already I’ve lost three. Nobody wants to clean up anymore. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for?”

  “Who was supposed to clean the OR?–”

  “The one with the thing in it?”

  “Yeah, that one.”

  The old man flicked over a page and came up with a name.

  “Is he new?” Fong asked.

  “No. Been with us almost two months. A veteran.”

  “What does he look like?” asked Fong.

  “A peasant. What do peasants look like – mud that got up and walked.”

  “Young, old, male, female, what?”

  “Youngish. Male.”

  “Where is he now?” The man gave him a blank stare. Fong snapped open his cell phone, “Surround the hospital. No one is to go in or out.” Then he turned to the elderly man, “Find that man, now!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  AND IN ANOTHER PART OF AMERICA

  Larry arrived at his suburban Connecticut home the second night after the meeting in Virginia and fell to his knees in the darkened front hall. He hadn’t slept since the meeting and its startling news about Angel Michael’s activities in Shanghai. Already newspapers were full of lurid stories. Amassive right-to-life campaign swung into action supporting the Shanghai bombings with startling figures on the rate of abortion in China. These figures were immediately rebuked by pro-choice advocates. Abortion was back on the front page – just as the old man who Matthew called his father wanted at this time of a crucial Congressional election.

  That first night Larry’s wife had suggested they pray. He had done his best but he was unable to clear his head of the images that had taken root there. A woman on a table – a fetus in a cage beneath. Larry had no doubt that abortion was murder and that it was the most open manifestation of the wrong turn that society had taken. That it must be stopped before it ushered in the devil himself.

  And Larry knew of the devil and his awful works. Until the meeting two nights ago in Virginia he was certain that his profoundly retarded CP-wracked daughter in the next room was the devil’s price for his momentary lapse into faithlessness. But since the meeting he was less sure of that – of anything. He caught an image of himself in the hall mirror. His classical “Yalie” looks were deserting him. Yalie looks he thought appropriate for a Yale man to have – even faded or fading Yalie looks.

  He opened the door to his daughter’s room. For a moment he questioned why he hadn’t climbed the stairs to see his wife. Then he put aside the question. He knew why he was going into his daughter’s room. She lay on her side, twisted, so her body faced the wall. Her head craned back toward the door as he entered. Her eyes, as always, were open and full of pain. Didn’t she ever sleep? Didn’t she ever get relief?

  Larry whispered a prayer for forgiveness – but not to God – to her. Then he knelt by her bed and recited his prayers. But for the first time since his relapse he wondered if there really was anyone up there to hear him – or if He was there, if He cared. His daughter’s hand touched his face. He looked up into her dark eyes and searched for a message – anything that said her life was worth the price of her pain.

  Then he thought back to his wild days as a student at Yale. To a beach house in West Haven – and a roommate, Joel, who had become an FBI agent. Yes, Yale produced more CIA guys, but it also produced its share of high-ranking FBI agents. He hadn’t seen his roommate for years, but Joel was his class rep so he communicated periodically by group e-mail.

  Larry’s daughter rolled over and let out a cry. Her back arched in a vain effort to move away from one of her many sources of pain.

  “Like a woman on a surgery table,” he thought. Then he wondered why that thought had come to him. Then he wondered if he should call his roommate – and tell him what? That I’m part of an international conspiracy? No – that this blasphemy must stop!

  Yes. This blasphemy must stop. Of that he was sure. The only problem was which blasphemy. Of that Larry was unsure.

  His wife found him the next morning asleep in the chair beside their daughter’s bed. The girl’s sheets and blankets were wet; her face was constricted in yet another spasm of pain. As she watched her daughter’s features contort she thought for the thousandth time, “I should never have let Larry talk me out of having the abortion.” Then she apologized to whatever powers could hear her secret thoughts.

  Larry’s e-mail note to his college roommate was a botched attempt at circumspection. Not exactly an I-have-a-friend-who letter – but close.

  In his austere office in the FBI building, Joel dredged up an impression of his ex-roommate before he proceeded. If even a small fraction of what Larry implied in his e-mail was true, Joel knew he could be in the centre of an immensely complicated international incident. There were just too many people in the Washington office who salivated every time something awful happened to the Chinese. And among those salivating were many who were both powerful and very, very pro-life.

  So Joel carefully deleted Larry’s “what-if” e-mail, then its backup, then any history link, checked for cookies, then applied the deep erase available to him as a ranking FBI official. He thought of it as a cleanser. In fact, that’s exactly how it’s marketed on hundreds of porn sites on the Net – Boy Are You In Trouble, Pal – But Buy This Cleanser and She’ll Never Know What You’re Up To!!!

  And he forgot about it.

  Forgot about it until four days later – when he picked up his morning copy of the Washington Post.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE HONG KONG SPECIALIST

  At first, Shanghai’s five-star hotels ignored the police request to check their guests against the following description: Caucasian male, thirty-five to fifty, overweight, six-foot-one or -two, white belt, white shoes, golf shirt, glasses on a silver chain around his neck, video camcorder. Then they heard about the police command post set up dead in the centre of the Hilton’s lobby. In an effort to keep Shanghai cops out of their own lobbies the luxury hotels started diligently to compare the police description to the appearance of their hotel guests. Soon data began to flow from the hotels to the police.

  As it did, Joan Shui, the arson specialist sent by the Hong Kong constabulary, was in a stare-down with an immigration officer at Shanghai’s International Airport, Hong Qiao. She’d already shown the man her Hong Kong passport, a copy of the Shanghai police commissioner’s faxed request, and her Hong Kong constabulary ID. As far as she was concerned, it was enough – fuck, it was more than enough.

  Her opinion on this matter was not shared by the hard-faced immigration officer across the table from her. For the third time he asked about her exact origins. For the third time she asked him why he needed to know that information and demanded to see his superior. He refused and allowed his eyes to linger just long enough on the triangle of skin exposed by the undone top button of her blouse so that Joan almost winced. “Funny,” she thought, “stuff like that never used to bother me.”

  “I’m a cop. I’ve been asked to help in a serious case of arson in your city.”

  “The baby bomber.”

  She didn’t nod. She didn’t do anything. To dismiss the fire bombing of an abortion clinic as the work of a “baby bomber” was breathtakingly callous, even for a Chinese male. Before she could help herself she muttered, “Fucking ignorant peasant” – not exactly the most tactful approach to class politics in the People’s Republic of China.

  The immigration officer leapt to his feet and began screaming at her. His Shanghanese was so loaded with colloquialisms and colourful local idioms that she only got the gist of the rant – imperialist, running dog capitalist, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah. God she wished mainlanders would get past this ancient crap.

  The man’s bellowing brought several guards on the run. The guards didn’t bother her, but their drawn Kalashnikovs were another matter. For the briefest moment it occurred to her that should she be shot to death in this situation St. Pet
er would laugh at her as she approached the pearly gates. “Why didn’t you just tell them your father was Chinese and your mother of indeterminate Northern European heritage? And a whore – such things happen.”

  “My background is my business, St. Peter.”

  “How quaint of you to think that. But surely you understand that now it is my business too,” he said, his voice filled with a warbling laugh.

  On second thought she wasn’t sure if a woman whose last sexual dalliance was little more than a wispy memory of limousines and champagne cocktails would ever get the chance to hear St. Peter laugh.

  Then, without warning, the shouting in the office stopped and the weapons were quickly shouldered. The deep voice of Wu Fan-zi ordered the young soldiers back to their stations. Then his bulky frame filled the door. He reminded Joan of the New Zealand rugby players who played for the All Blacks. Not the fleet runners but the solid men in the scrum. She liked solid men. She instantly liked the man in the doorframe though she didn’t even know his name.

  When he grabbed her documents from the desk, warned the immigration officer to keep his nose out of police business, and apologized to her for the “inconvenience” – her fondness grew by a full leap if not a bound. Hustling her out of the immigration section he muttered under his breath, “Welcome to Shanghai.” She nodded and smiled. And he had a wry sense of humour – what more could a girl ask for? Then he said, “They found a second fetus in a cage.”

  “No bomb?”

  “Not yet.”

  She stopped smiling. She’d fought to get this assignment because she desperately needed to work on something that had some meaning. She’d had her fill of saving oodles of money for insurance companies that were already richer than some Third World countries. She whispered a silent promise, that this one was different – this one was important.

  * * *

  The hospital cleaner was coming round. They’d found him unconscious, stuffed into a closet. He had a deep wound on the back of his head. Now he sat, frightened and bleeding, in front of Fong.

  “Nothing. You say you saw nothing?”

  “Yes, he hit me from behind. Don’t believe me? Look at my head.”

  “Do you know when it was?”

  “Before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before now.”

  Fong looked at the man’s wrist. He had no watch. No doubt he woke with the sun and went to sleep when it got dark. As the head of housekeeping had said, “He’s a peasant.” Suddenly Fong envied him. “They’ll patch up that head of yours now.”

  The man harrumphed.

  Fong left the room and almost bumped into a cleaner’s trolley. It looked much like those used by chambermaids in big hotels. The bottom half of the thing was covered by sheets on both sides. Fong pulled back one of the sheets. There was lots of room to put a titanium cage there.

  A patient in a chair across the way barked out, “Watchya’ lookin’ for? You lost your daughter or sumptin’?” Fong looked at the near toothless man. He had no clever retort, not even a snarly comeback. So he turned on his heel and headed out without saying a word.

  * * *

  As Wu Fan-zi drove up the ramp to the newly built Gao Jia Expressway, the Hong Kong specialist perused the new photos of the blast site that he had given her. Then she set them aside and concentrated on the latest facts and figures. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion. She let out a sigh.

  “Yeah,” Wu Fan-zi said.

  “Your figures are right?” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Yes, they are.” It wasn’t really an answer.

  “Then it has to be an exotic,” she said. “The formula for force has been with us since that British guy ate that apple or whatever it was he did. Even in the matrix of relativity it still basically holds, especially in a confined space.”

  He turned to her, “I know.” Wu Fan-zi slammed his ham of a fist down hard on the car’s horn. It blared and a path through the cyclists slowly opened.

  “What are bicycles doing here? I thought this was an expressway.”

  “This is Shanghai. Pavement is pavement here.”

  Wu Fan-zi drove for a while then asked, “So which exotic?”

  She thought about that for a moment then said, “I wonder if it matters.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I assume all the exotics are available in Shanghai if you have the contacts to find them and the money to buy them.”

  “True.”

  “The contacts would be hard to generate but it could be done. But the money involved – I don’t know. Exotics are incredibly expensive, not to mention his little trick with the titanium cage.”

  With a final honk they exited the expressway. A silence followed. Wu Fan-zi guided his car expertly through the thick traffic of Hong Qiao Lu moving toward Ya’nan Lu.

  Finally she spoke, “Why not ignore the explosive for now and follow the money? You might get lucky.”

  Wu Fan-zi almost had an accident as he hurtled the car across three lanes of traffic and screeched it to a halt on the sidewalk. He turned to her, “Explain.”

  “The force co-efficient tells us that an exotic combustible was used. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Exotic combustibles are expensive.”

  “Right.”

  “Whoever did this wouldn’t dare carry either the explosive or tons of cash into the country with them, would they?”

  “Not if they were in their right mind.”

  “Oh, I think there’s very little doubt he’s in his right mind. Not our right mind, but his.”

  “Got that.”

  “So if he didn’t carry the money he’d have to have it transferred to him here – no?”

  Wu Fan-zi nodded.

  “This is the People’s Republic of China, isn’t it?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “Well, the last time I checked the People’s Republic of China monitored all bank transfers to and from foreigners. No?”

  Wu Fan-zi was too busy calling Fong on his cell phone to answer the beautiful woman’s question. When he finished his call he looked at her. “What’s your name?”

  “Joan Shui.”

  “You look like an actress.”

  “I’m not. I’m a cop. May I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you married, Wu Fan-zi?”

  The stolid man blushed. She liked him even more for that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A VERY LONG NIGHT

  The lobby of the Shanghai Hilton was awash with cops and hoteliers trying to give their information to those cops. In the midst of the mayhem Fong called in Wu Fan-zi’s suggestion to the section of Special Investigations that monitored banking transactions in and out of the Middle Kingdom. They promised to get right on it.

  Fong sat back and watched the mounting chaos around him. He knew that nothing would come from the search for the American tourist with the camcorder or from the people looking into the bank transfers until morning. By midnight they should have some basic data. By dawn it could be narrowed down by removing those who weren’t in Shanghai on the appropriate days or in the case of the camcorder tourist, those who are of the wrong age. By midmorning they’d probably have a list of fifty tourists who vaguely fit the description and double that having hefty bank transfers during the appropriate time period. Preliminary interviews could start by mid- to late morning. There was nothing much for Fong to do until that time.

  The banking information and the tourist with the camcorder were his best leads but they were hardly solid and he knew it. So he trebled the security forces at the sixteen hospitals that provided abortion services for the greater Shanghai area and left the Hilton lobby.

  Shanghai was beginning to prepare for the evening. Young couples walked arm-in-arm and stole kisses in the shadows. Some right out in the light. How different they were from him and Fu Tsong when they were young and courting. He got into his car an
d radioed ahead to the nearest of the hospitals. The captain there reported that he had been supplied with a small corps of troops that he had stationed inside and around the hospital’s perimeter. Fong warned him not to talk to reporters. The man acknowledged that he understood. Fong ended his conversation saying, “I want any Caucasian found on the grounds or even near the hospital held for questioning. Is that clear?”

  “Totally, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll expect a report in the morning.”

  “It’ll be there. May I ask a question – sir?”

  “Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Do you think he’ll try again?”

  “No.”

  “No, you don’t think he’ll try again or no you don’t think he’ll try again because you know he’ll try again?”

  Fong allowed a moment of silence then said, “Are you native Shanghanese, Captain?”

  “Born and bred.”

  “Me too, Captain – so you know the answer to your question, don’t you?”

  “The latter.”

  “You bet. Keep your eyes open – especially around surgery rooms with windows.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fong hung up and dialled the second hospital on the list. He went through the same procedure. After contacting the last of the sixteen hospitals he headed home. But even as he parked his car, he knew he wasn’t heading toward Lily and Xiao Ming. He was heading toward his one place of true calm, his only real sanctuary in Shanghai, the decrepit old theatre on the academy’s campus that had been his first wife’s, Fu Tsong’s, favourite place to perform.

  While Fong waited for rehearsal to begin he leafed through the newspapers he’d bought outside the academy grounds at the kiosk run by the smiling boy with the bad teeth. Fong had bought papers there for years. Of late he’d noticed a distinct change in the young man. Now the boy called himself an entrepreneur and had raised the price he was charging for the papers. Fong wasn’t about to pay any more than was required.