The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory

by David Rotenberg

  The old man with the hoarse voice knew this. He also knew that his beloved Shanghai would be hit hardest. After being ignored by Beijing for almost forty years, the city had finally begun to flourish after Deng’s famous cat remark: “ A red cat, a black cat, both are cats.” This remark was interpreted as meaning money from the East, money from the West, money is money. When four months later Deng casually remarked, “What’s so bad about being rich?” the race toward a market economy was on. The five years since had been years of startling growth in Shanghai. Growth and revitalization crowned by the new Pudong Free Trade Region. But now all this was in danger. As quickly as it began it could falter. The old man had seen it happen too many times before. If he had believed in the gods, he would have said that they were fickle and on occasion needed a good laugh. So they played around with our lives—they fully understood the idea of irony. But he didn’t believe in gods. He believed in planning and thought. He knew what the Americans wanted from China in exchange for MFN status. They wanted what they called progress on what they called human rights.

  That they would not get. Ever. China would be governed by Chinese. Never again would a foreign power dictate to China how she was to run her own affairs. This was not 1840 and the shameful Treaty of Nanking where China sold her sovereignty to the English in exchange for opium. And yet, the old man chuckled, he much liked his house in the English Concession and that would not have existed had the English not run Shanghai from the Treaty of Nanking until the Liberation.

  He remembered taking up his old writing brush and dabbing it in the ink that had pooled in the well of the stone. He had twisted and feathered the brush on the ancient stone’s flattened surface. Then, drawing out a piece of rice paper, he had started his list. On one side he drew the characters for WHAT THEY WANT. On the other: WHAT WE WILL DO.

  The list went this way: They want action on, what they call, human rights in China. We will do nothing about this. They want the cessation of export of all goods made by the Red Army. We will stop some but put new labels on most and continue to export them. They want us to stop producing automatic weapons for export. We will protest vigorously and then give in on this point. They want us to stop exporting goods made by political prisoners. We will move the political prisoners to prisons for common criminals and continue their work. They want a cessation of trade in the products of endangered species.

  For a moment he had gulped air and sorted his thoughts. Then with a deft flick of his wrist he had slashed characters that read: We will go to any length to stop the trade in ivory in our country.

  Rhino horn was not mentioned. Only the old knew the true value of the miracle elixir made from that rare product. He was old. He knew. Knew and would not be denied its benefits.

  The cracked-voiced man had been lost in thought. He saw that they were waiting for him. He finally asked wearily, “And this is important, we still agree?”

  “If Shanghai is to grow and prosper it is,” said a middle-aged Chinese voice. It was affirmed by an American twang.

  Once more there were murmurs of assent.

  “How can a culture love animals so much?” the old man thought for the thousandth time. He remembered seeing a picture of a German concentration camp commandant tenderly petting a dog while in the background, the dead and the dying were kept behind wire. Like the Japanese at Kwongjo, he thought. Sentimentality is a dangerous thing.

  Insurance like that which he had set in motion with the Canadian director was its antidote.

  He noted again that the room was waiting for him. It was getting harder and harder to get enough air into his lungs to speak. The operation had greatly drained his powers. Gulping deeply, he forced out, “Then let us authorize a second message.”Beneath the massive city, the fibre optic networks glimmered light. And faster than a thought an African man’s fate was sealed.

  Being a black man in China was like being an extremely expensive pet tiger who refused to wear its leash. The Chinese all stared at you but because you were supposed to be oppressed, like them, they didn’t gawk the way they did at white people. Ngalto Chomi, Zairian consul general, had everything a robust young male could ever ask for. An almost inexhaustible supply of money from his private and ever-so-confidential “importing” business, cars, women, and the crucial linchpin of diplomatic immunity. So Shanghai was a playland awaiting his tastes and proclivities. After six months of confinement in the Beijing embassy, constantly under the watch of the conservative ambassador, he had been transferred to the new consulate in Shanghai. He’d been sprung. No more Russians here, just Chinese and a few westerners. Not even many black people. It was a rare day that he encountered another black face on the streets. And he was on the streets of the city all the time. What a city! A candy store of infinite proportions that catered to all tastes, all curiosities. The Chinese were curious about him, too. He felt the eyes of the young women watching him as he moved past them on the crowded streets. He felt the envy as he slid into his sleek Mercedes with its Chinese chauffeur. He felt them—so many of them—all watching him.

  The one person watching him that he didn’t pick out was a slight-figured Chinese man in a nicely tailored but unremarkable suit. He didn’t notice Loa Wei Fen. No one noticed Loa Wei Fen. But Loa Wei Fen was taking note of him, and carefully recording where he went and how long he stayed at each of his stops. Mr. Lo was still the lion cub on the roof, but with every passing day he was getting closer to the edge—to the leap onto that narrow strip.

  The large African got back into his car, and Loa Wei Fen slid onto his bicycle. At this hour of the day, a bicycle could make as good time as a car. The large car pulled off Nanjing Road and headed south toward the Old City. Loa Wei Fen guessed he was going to the Old Shanghai Restaurant around the corner from the YuYuan Garden.

  He was wrong. But he was close.

  Signalling his driver to stop, Ngalto Chomi hopped out on Fang Bang Road just south and west of the popular garden. He was in the heart of the Old City. He liked it here. Here they stared at a black man, and here, he stared back at them. Here his six feet seven inches of height gave him a view of the world of the little people. The people who hacked and spat and called him very “colourful” names. The people who resented his presence. The people who knew so much about opium.

  He grabbed a plastic bag of cut-up pineapple off one of the stands, threw down a ten-kwai note and, without waiting for the change, headed north on He Nan smiling and munching as he went. The day was clear but the Old City had its own thickness, not of heat but of intense human experience. Chomi loved it here.

  The African’s turn off He Nan into Fu Yu surprised Loa Wei Fen. Fu Yu was the famous open-air antiques market. This didn’t seem to fit. Besides, it was crowded there and he could lose his prey if he was unlucky. Quickly leaving his bicycle against a post he plunged into the crowd now fifteen yards behind the black man. Only Chomi’s height allowed Loa Wei Fen to follow him. But the African moved quickly and, as fortune would have it, a motorized three-wheeled cart pulled out in front of Loa Wei Fen. By the time it was cleared there was no sign of his quarry. Quickly Loa Wei Fen leapt onto a garbage bin at the side of one of the dumpling carts. Ignoring the screams of the vendor, he craned his neck but couldn’t see Chomi. Jumping down, he raced through the crowd and ducked into the first available building. He ran through a hallway crowded with beds and up a set of steps. On the first level, he raced down a corridor crowded with more mattresses and threw open the door leading to the front room. An old woman was there with her granddaughter on her lap. She screamed as Loa Wei Fen entered the room. He whirled on her and, in a breath, was an inch from her withered face. The move shocked her into silence. Loa Wei Fen stuck his head out the window and peered in both directions. The black man was nowhere to be seen.

  Swiftly descending the steps, he made his way thoughtfully through the crowd. He quickly reviewed the day’s events. It had begun before dawn with the e-mail arrival of his new quarry’s picture, vital statistics, an
d addresses. He started his surveillance of the Zairian

  Consulate at 7:15. The Zairian consul arrived at 9:50. Just past 11:00, the African emerged from the building and got into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes. Loa Wei Fen smiled.

  Now he was racing through the crowd, oblivious to the anger and shouts of those he pushed past. At the foot of the flea market he crossed the street. Once there he looked both ways. There were alleys behind the buildings on both sides. He chose east and sped toward that alley.

  About 250 yards down the alley sat Ngalto Chomi’s car. His Chinese driver was smoking a cigarette while waiting for his charge to come back from his afternoon diversion. Loa Wei Fen casually strolled down the alley, walking right past the car. Ten yards past the Mercedes and around a sharp bend in the alley he looked to his left, but he needn’t have. The smell of the opium cut into the afternoon air, a slight rancidness amid the heady aroma of life in the Old City.

  Loa Wei Fen was pleased. As he left the alley, he noticed a squatting father holding his bare-bottomed young daughter under her knees and shaking her gently so that the last of her urine didn’t get on her legs. She was oblivious to people watching and sang a little tune as her father completed his task and then pulled up her pants. She hopped over the little puddle of pee and went to help her grandmother clean some vegetables in a small red plastic tub. The father stretched and then hawked a wad of phlegm onto the street. No one gave it a second glance. Evidently everyone found it as natural as . . . as peeing on the sidewalk. Loa Wei Fen liked the Old City too. It was a fine place for a murder.

  Amanda Fallon had been told that the JAL flight from Chicago to Tokyo would take thirteen hours. She had no idea what thirteen hours on an airplane meant. Despite the fact that the plane was almost empty, thirteen hours was every one of thirteen hours. The first three hours were tedium incarnate. Flying over the Canadian prairies made even airplane food seem a pleasant diversion. But then just as she was about to drift off, the pilot announced that they were turning north and that their flight path would bring them over some of the wildest regions on earth. The plane in short order passed by Edmonton and entered the Canadian Northwest Territories. The terrain quickly moved from temperate desert cattle farms to a true wilderness. She stayed glued to the window once she caught her first glimpse of the mighty Mackenzie River—still ice bound, etching its glacial path to the Arctic Ocean. She watched in fascination as the frozen striations passed beneath the plane. And then the plane veered west again and range after glacier-capped range of towering mountains leading to Alaska glided beneath the belly of the aircraft. Finally the Bering Strait yawned ahead. Three hours had passed as if in a minute. Amanda’s forehead bore a large round red mark where she had pushed up against the Plexiglas window. There was a wildness down there, the likes of which Amanda Fallon had never even dreamed. As the plane crested the Bering Strait and headed south along the Russian coastline, she reached into her bag and took out a pen and a piece of scrap paper. Without preamble or overt thought she began to jot down notes.

  She hadn’t written for years. She hadn’t grown for years. But now she was writing, at first tentatively, but shortly with growing confidence—writing about the glory of what she saw. What she saw after all those years of blindness as Mrs. Richard Fallon.

  The second day of a murder investigation was all about what you didn’t know. It tended to be depressing, and as Fong entered the musty meeting room with the large round table he looked into the faces of his investigation team and found little to give him solace. Lily was handing out copies of her forensic report, while people were glancing through the file on the coroner’s findings. Wang Jun’s time chart was on the wall along with several of the photos of the alley—with and without the pieces of Richard Fallon’s body. Several of the younger officers held large jars of Tang that they had filled with lutsah, green tea leaves. As the meeting progressed they would refresh the leaves regularly with boiling water from the omnipresent thermoses. The sting of cigarette smoke was in the air. For a moment it occurred to Fong that just such a gathering must have been convened upon the death of his wife. Charts of the construction site would have been hung and pictures of Fu Tsong’s . . . He let the thought go and moved to the chair at the head of the table. He had never found out who led the investigation into Fu Tsong’s murder but he suspected that it was Wang Jun, who now stood up to go through the crime scene data.

  He did it with his normal efficiency. The statement of the doctor confirmed the warden’s report. The physician had in fact been at the sick man’s side for less than five minutes (evidently proclaiming loudly, “He’s dying, what do you want from me?”) and then headed back down the length of the alley. He had, as expected, seen nothing out of the ordinary. The man who had been reported for causing a disturbance had ended up in jail that night and hence was easy to locate. He claimed he was so drunk he didn’t know where he was, let alone what he was doing. Further coroner and forensic reports added little. The nature of the ambidextrous killer held the table’s interest for some time. Fong assigned his best young detective, Li Xiao, to cover this area of the investigation. He was to check into martial arts academies and see what was known about this kind of fighting skill. The coroner suggested that the kind of knife, twosided and with a significant thrusting point, might be a place to start. Detective Li Xiao took a note and headed out. Lily’s analysis of the tiny crystalline shards in Richard Fallon’s lungs was still inconclusive. She made the point that with the equipment available to her she might never be able to identify them. Fong authorized a contact with the Hong Kong constabulary and a request to use their facilities. The table was surprised by Fong’s willingness to break with tradition and reach out for help to the despised Hong Kong Protectorate.

  Wang Jun’s people had still not been able to locate the street sweeper so Fong assigned two more people to help in the search and then dismissed the meeting except for Lily, Wang Jun, and the old coroner. Fong’s assistant tried to stay behind but Fong sent him out and locked the door behind him.

  “That may not be so smart,” Wang Jun said.

  “I never claimed to be smart, Wang Jun.”

  “I know that, but try not to be stupid. He’s probably on his way to the commissioner’s office now.”

  “That’ll give us ten minutes.”

  After a moment of silence, Lily said, “For what?”

  Fong moved toward the time line. As he passed the picture, a copy of the one he had in his desk, he noted that no one had yet mentioned the blob of heart between Richard Fallon’s legs or the fingers of Richard Fallon’s right hand that were pointing—pointing to what? At the time line he stopped and looked at them. Then he took out a copy of the Shanghai Daily News from that first morning with the headline DIM SUM KILLER STRIKES IN JULU LU ALLEY. “We’ve got a problem.” Pointing at the time chart, “The body was found at 10:43 by rookie cop Ling Che. The CSU arrived at 10:52. Right?”

  “To the point, Fong, time’s a-wastin’ here,” chimed in Wang Jun.

  “Were there any reporters at the scene? Do you remember when the first reporters showed up?”

  Lily and Wang Jun were now interested. “Yeah, I remember, because I was surprised how long it took them to smell this one out. I don’t think there was one there before the body was already photographed. So not before midnight, at the earliest.”

  “Right,” said Fong. Then turning to the coroner, “And what time did I get to the Hua Shan Hospital morgue?”

  The coroner flipped through his pad but Fong interrupted him. “It was 12:49, trust me. And I didn’t come up with the Dim Sum crack until at least one o’clock.”

  The coroner was lost. “So?”

  But it was Lily who was on top of it. “Throw me that paper.”

  Fong did. Lily looked carefully at the masthead. “This is the early edition,” said Lily.

  Fong nodded. “Right.”

  The coroner still didn’t get it. “So?”

  Wang Jun let out a lungful of
smoke that seemed to jet across the room. “So? So, the early edition goes to press before midnight. The reporters didn’t arrive until after midnight. Even with cellular phones they couldn’t possibly have filed the story in time to make this paper.”

  Then Fong played his trump card. “It’s not just a matter of being in time to file their story. They have to clear stories, especially stories about foreigners, with the authorities. I needn’t remind you that China does not exactly have a free press.”

  With a look of shock, Lily said, “Are you trying to say that the paper had this story before Richard Fallon was killed?”

  “The story and the clearance for the story,” nodded Fong.

  After a moment, while this was sinking in, the coroner added, “I guess they just got lucky with the dim sum stuff.”

  At that there was a knocking on the door that quickly became a pounding. Fong opened the door to a very angry Commissioner Hu and a smiling Shrug and Knock.

  Fong sat in the back of the campus’s rickety old theatre that night. His chair squeaked. Every chair in the ancient place squeaked, every floorboard moaned, and the archaic electrical fixtures, which would have closed down most other public establishments, hummed loudly. The large black overhead fans rotated at different speeds (two did not rotate at all) and the sound of the air exhaust system alternated between deafening and concussive. The place smelled of people. Fong liked it. It had been Fu Tsong’s favourite theatre and she had played in theatres all over China as well as in Southeast Asia and Japan. In fact she had fought the new thousand-seat theatre on campus, first against the building and then against the design. But it was always hard to convince Chinese people to trust their own theatrical instincts when there were Russian consultants around. Russians used the name Stanislavski like a weapon.