The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

by David Rotenberg

  “I’m listening.”

  “I do things. They sometimes hurt people. I don’t mean to hurt people but sometimes I do.”

  “What things do you do that hurt people? Why do you hurt people? Why do you hurt me? Why were you in that theatre just now? What is happening between us?”

  He took a deep breath. He felt as if he were in the middle of a swinging bridge over a vast gorge. He and Lily were somehow there together and he had set alight the rope cables on either end. The bridge was swinging and he had no idea who, if anyone, would make it back alive.

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  He took another deep breath. “I have always been alone Lily. With people, but alone. Fu Tsong helped me with that but only a little.”

  “And me? Do I help you with that? I’d prefer that you don’t say her name in our home again, Fong.”

  That stunned him. “She was part of me.”

  “But not part of me or of us, Fong. You and me and Xiao Ming. Not part of us.” She leaned against the wall.

  “Okay.”

  “So answer the question.”

  Fong sensed that the rope cable on their swinging bridge was beginning to fray, “Do you help? That question?”

  “That question, Fong.”

  The bridge began to rock violently, “No, I’m sorry but you don’t help with that, Lily.”

  It was as if the cable snapped. Lily gave way and slid down the wall she was leaning against so that she was on the floor with her knees up by her shoulders. She began to cry. Xiao Ming joined in.

  Another cable snapped. Fong plummeted toward the roiling water of the gorge beneath.

  Fong went into their bedroom and picked up Xiao Ming. When he came back into the living room, Lily was on her feet drying her tears. Without saying a word she took Xiao Ming from his arms and headed toward the door.

  As she reached for the door handle Fong knew he should ask, “Where are you going?” but he didn’t. When she threw open the door both of them were surprised to see Captain Chen.

  “Sorry. Am I interrupting something, Miss Lily?”

  “Lily, not Miss Lily and no you are not, Captain Chen. Xiao Ming and I were just on our way to my mother’s place. We thought we’d spend some time there. Perhaps a decade or two.” She pushed past Captain Chen who looked in at Fong. “Sorry, sir, but you didn’t answer your cell phone.”

  Fong looked at the young man. “Have you found something?”

  “About the cage, yes. I think I found who made them.”

  As Fong and Chen raced out they passed right by a beautiful young Chinese man – a man whose photograph they had drawn from a VHS tape – Angel Michael. The man watched Fong and Captain Chen go and then turned in the other direction and followed Lily and Xiao Ming. Mani was clearly guiding him now. Mani had divided the family for him. A plan was coming into clear focus. The pathway to return the light was opening before him.

  The ancient man sat waiting for Fong to speak. If, as Chen suspected, he had learned his metallurgy during the Great Leap Forward the man could well be in his eighties. Fong noted the man’s fingers. Long. Tapered. Supple. “What was it with artists and beautiful hands?” Fong wondered.

  Fong sat opposite the man. He identified himself and began to explain why he was there.

  The man stopped him. “Your companion, Captain Chen, has already explained the circumstances of your visit.”

  There was a sharpness in the man’s voice and a confidence – as if he’d been interrogated many times before.

  Fong thought he knew why. “Did you have a hard time of it during the Cultural Revolution?”

  “I am an artist. The Red Guards hated artists.”

  Simple. Straightforward. Clearly true.

  “But why?” Fong found himself asking.

  “We can see the beauty. They cannot.”

  Again simple. Again true.

  “Do you know the use your cages have been put to?”

  The man nodded, his face neutral.

  “Who bought the cages?”

  “A man.”

  “Which man?”

  “He was very careful when we met. He contacted me and had me meet him at a restaurant in the Pudong.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t know its name but it was set up like an American restaurant, a diner, I believe they are called. I was instructed to sit in the farthest booth from the door and face the back of the restaurant. He sat in the booth just forward of me and ordered me not to look back at him. My eyes are not very good. I’m old. I don’t see well at night and the lights in that place were turned down very low. He explained what he wanted and handed me plans.”

  “How many times did you meet him?”

  “Just that once.”

  “How did he pick up the cages?”

  “I left them for him in a locker at the North Train Station. He’d given me the key.”

  “Was he old, young?” Fong reined in his growing frustration and continued, “Please think, we need your help.”

  The old man digested that and pulled himself up to his full height. He spoke softly. “It was hard for me to tell.”

  Chen spread out the three photos on the table. “One of these men, perhaps, Grandpa?”

  The old artist looked at the three photographs. He put aside the two middle-aged men and stared at the young man with the briefcase. Then he opened a desk drawer and drew out a magnifying glass. He put it close to the photograph. Fong saw that he was looking at the man’s hands. Of course, the man had handed over the plans. The old man would have seen the hands!

  The old artist began to nod and held the pictures.

  Fong stared at the photograph. The image there was so young. So clear. So free of doubt. So . . . luminous. Without looking at the old artist Fong said, “Him.”

  The old artist nodded.

  “Do you think he saw the beauty, sir?” Chen asked the cage maker.

  The old man thought about that for a moment then said, “No. But I believe he saw something else.”

  “What?” asked Fong.

  “Something . . .” his voice faltered. Then he tried again, “Something, somehow, entirely different, foreign.”

  Fong thought about that for a moment but could make no sense of it. He took the photo and strode toward the door. With his hand on the doorknob he stopped and turned back to the older man. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make the cages for him. Surely you knew there was something odd about his request.”

  “Something odd?” the old man murmured as a small smile creased his face. “Yes, Detective, I guess there was something odd in his request. There was also two thousand American dollars. Enough to buy me all the materials I will need till my passing.” Then he abruptly spat on the ground and his voice turned hard, “I did nothing illegal. What I made harmed no one. This is not the Cultural Revolution. You are not Red Guards. Now go away.”

  “How many cages did you make for him?” Chen asked.

  “Four,” the man replied.

  “Has he picked them all up?” Chen asked.

  “Days ago.”

  Fong strode back to the table. “This man covers his tracks. He killed the nurse who helped him. He’ll kill you too.”

  “Only if he finds me, Detective.”

  “We found you.”

  “No. Your ugly friend found me. How did you manage that, Captain Chen?”

  “People tell me things they often will not tell others.”

  “Ah,” the man smiled. “An advantage of a modest appearance.” Then he quoted, “We are all granted a boon, although sometimes that specialness is hard, at first, to see.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  AND THE ROOK TAKES THE QUEEN

  Angel Michael waited outside the apartment block – one of the old Soviet-styled horrors. He didn’t follow Lily and the baby into the place for fear that the building warden would note his presence. Instead, he stood
on the sidewalk and mixed with a crowd of Shanghanese commenting on a game of Go being played by two elderly gentlemen in Mao jackets. The crowd clearly favoured the man using the black stones, but Angel Michael quickly saw that the elderly man using the white stones was a much better player. Every feint white made, attracted black’s eye. Whole sections of the board began to close off to black without him even knowing it as he concentrated on one of the many diversions black set up.

  Angel Michael understood the value of a diversion. He was planning one of his own at that very moment. The level of security at the Hua Shan Hospital was very high. He’d gotten the cage and the RDX to the courtyard outside the window of the operating room but he needed time in the surgery itself to set the detonator. He needed a distraction – and a cover – and he thought he knew the key to both: Xiao Ming.

  Lily came out of the building and headed in the direction of the Hua Shan Hospital. Shortly thereafter, Lily’s mother came out of the building wheeling her granddaughter as if she were a tiny queen. Matthew remembered the chess games with the man he called his father. He remembered how even a queen can be a diversion. He remembered that bad chess players watched the queen. Good ones knew that although the queen had mobility and power, she was not the point of the game. The almost immobile king was. The baby Xiao Ming was only the queen. The Hua Shan Hospital abortion surgery was the king. Direct their eyes toward the queen long enough and their king would be vulnerable.

  Matthew followed the queen and her grand dame down the road. He kept his distance and they led him to their oh-so-logical end. The queen, of course, goes to the palace – the Shanghai Children’s Palace. Matthew paid his admission, avoided the drama club kids, and followed the queen. Xiao Ming and her grandmother were met at a side door that opened to a surprisingly Western-style plastic playground. The place was a daycare of some sort. By the way the two were greeted they were clearly regulars. Lily’s mom took her leave of Xiao Ming with a big kiss. The child smiled.

  Once Lily’s mother was gone, Matthew took a small digital camera from his pocket, zoomed in, and took a shot of Xiao Ming. Then another. Then a third.

  A daycare worker came up to him. “She’s a lovely girl.”

  “Yeah, we’re crazy about her.”

  “We haven’t seen . . .”

  “No. I’m usually at work by now. I’m with Special Investigations.”

  “A police officer?”

  He smiled and took one last photo of his queenly diversion then asked when Xiao Ming’s grandmother usually returned to pick up the child.

  “Usually around three.” Then confidentially the woman added, “I think she plays Mah Jong, I hope you won’t arrest her.” She laughed.

  Angel Michael joined in her laughter then told the woman that he’d be back to pick up Xiao Ming today. “We’ll give the old lady a break. Give her time to win back her losses.” She laughed at that too. He went to leave. The woman called after him, “Don’t you want to take a picture of me?”

  He paused then smiled. He pressed the flash button but not the “capture” button. The woman smiled. Matthew didn’t.

  As he left the Children’s Palace, Matthew pocketed the digital camera and put on a pair of sunglasses. It was going to be a hot day and it would get hotter – much hotter, Angel Michael thought. He took in the landmarks. Fine. Not far from the Hua Shan Hospital or the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Almost halfway between the fighting parents. Good.

  He began to think about the courtyard of the Hua Shan Hospital – and the things he’d stowed there.

  Copies of Angel Michael’s picture were being rushed around the city. Every hotel, every restaurant, every flophouse was scoured. Just before two o’clock in the afternoon a weary cop approached the front desk of the Shanghai Metron Hotel. Angel Michael spotted him the moment he entered the lobby. Cops walk as if they are important – weary, hard-working, but righteously important. When the man drew out the photo, Angel Michael guessed that they had found the cage maker. He knew he should have ended that one’s earthly woes. But it didn’t matter now. He checked his watch. Four hours and twelve minutes and the sixth operating theatre at the Hua Shan Hospital would deliver his final message – which he still needed to move into place.

  In fact, the presence of the cop played right into his hands. He ducked out of the lobby and ran up to the second floor. From there he took an elevator to his room. He grabbed the few things that he needed then flipped open his computer screen and downloaded his favourite digital picture of Xiao Ming. He hit F2 and the pre-designed program began to roll. Matthew left the room with a backpack over his shoulder and headed down the service elevator. Even as he made his way out the back entrance of the building, the hotel manager was opening his room and letting in the cop.

  Forty minutes later, Fong stood in Angel Michael’s room but his eyes were not searching the place for clues. They were glued to the computer screen where an image of Xiao Ming trapped in a cage was turning round and round and round while a message scrolled across the bottom: “I am in the light – and your daughter is with me there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BAITING AN ANGEL’S TRAP

  Robert Cowens stood up as his translator entered the restaurant. He had picked her favourite place, a small Japanese restaurant discreetly tucked away on a side street in the embassy district. The place was so clean that Robert always felt underwashed when he went there. Well, he’d also felt that way the few times he’d been in Japan. Their accent on hygiene was really a little much. This “accent” was even more evident when one had just stepped out of the harsh realities of Shanghai street life. His translator took off her round glasses and sat quietly with her hands folded on her lap. He offered her the dish of pickled pumpkin seeds. She declined. He ordered an appetizer and green tea. She didn’t speak.

  Finally he asked, “How was your interview?”

  “Interview, Mr. Cowens?”

  “With Detective Zhong?”

  “I didn’t . . .”

  “Please. We’ve worked together for a long time, you and I. I have never thought of you in any way as stupid. Please don’t think that I am.”

  She blushed – an unusual colour on the flawless Asian skin of her rounded cheeks.

  “Fine, now I want you to get in touch with your contacts.”

  Her eyes widened. “Contacts, Mr. Cowens?”

  “Again, I ask you not to treat me as if I am stupid. I’ve known from the beginning that you have contacts. That everything you and I talk about ‘moves’ to other places. So I want you to convince your contacts that I have in my possession an original Manichaean scroll all the way from the Taklamakan Desert. You can do that, can’t you?”

  The green tea arrived. She reached for the pot but he beat her to it and poured for her. As she brought the steaming liquid to her lips he said, “This is important to me. Understood?”

  She nodded and said, “Dui.”

  It was only at that point that Devil Robert realized he had conducted the entire conversation in Mandarin. He smiled.

  She looked at him questioningly.

  “How’s my Mandarin?” he asked in Mandarin.

  “Getting better, Mr. Cowens. Getting much better.” She put her green tea down and stood.

  “Won’t you stay to eat?”

  “No, Mr. Cowens. If this is important to you, I need to start right away. I should have a response for you soon.”

  He nodded and poured tea for himself as she left the restaurant.

  Fong knew he was shouting into his cell phone but he couldn’t stop himself. When Lily finally got on the line she shouted right back at him, “How dare you order my forensic people around, who the hell do you . . .?”

  “Where’s Xiao Ming!”

  “With my mother as she . . .”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, every morning my mother . . .”

  “Can you contact her, Lily?”

  Suddenly there was fear in her voice as she said slowly, “Why?
”

  Fong paused. He heard Lily gasp. “Where does your mother usually take Xiao Ming, Lily?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Think!”

  And Lily did. She began to reel off places and Fong relayed them to his officers. Within an hour more than 40 percent of the officers assigned to guard the Hua Shan Hospital were out on the streets looking for Fong and Lily’s baby.

  Angel Michael arrived to pick up Xiao Ming. He carried a digitally doctored photo of the baby and the grandmother with him standing beside them, just in case he was challenged. But there was no need. The woman in charge of the daycare at the Children’s Palace was happy to see the handsome young man again. It crossed Angel Michael’s mind that what would really have pleased this woman was being touched the way his French teacher had made him touch her. Angel Michael breathed away the nausea that came with that thought and allowed a smile to his beautifully shaped lips. The lady smiled back at him and bobbed a bow.

  As Angel Michael left the Children’s Palace, Xiao Ming began to struggle in his arms. She did not cry out. No. But she looked deep into his eyes. It almost spooked him.

  Twenty minutes later, Fong ran into the Children’s Palace. Five minutes after that, Angel Michael entered the largest abortion facility in all of China – the Hua Shan Hospital. Xiao Ming was in his arms. He carried a shopping bag. No one stopped him or even asked him to present ID. What kind of bomber carried a baby?

  With Xiao Ming in the crook of his arm he waited for a moment until the front reception desk was at its busiest then put the note on the counter and slipped back into the crowd. Ten minutes later, one of the three harried receptionists opened the envelope and shouted for a security guard.

  Less than ninety seconds after that, Fong’s phone rang and he went pale.

  “What?” demanded Lily.

  “Another note at the Hua Shan Hospital.” He called his head of security. “Evacuate the hospital! Contact Wu Fan-zi!”

  He looked back to Lily. She was ashen. “The man who wrote the note has Xiao Ming, doesn’t he?”