A Case of Two Cities

by Qiu Xiaolong

  Detective Yu had gotten hold of An’s cell phone record and transcripts of her calls-with the help of Old Hunter. An had talked to several men, asking about the whereabouts of Ming, but none seemed to know. So those phone calls, while valuable in tracing those possibly connected to Ming, failed to produce a breakthrough at the moment. Yu said that he would go on exploring in that direction and that there were several names he hadn’t known before. Yu didn’t exactly go into detail, and there was no point in mentioning all the names on the phone. No matter how hard they tried to keep to their weather terminology, those names had to be real names.

  For the same reason, Chen did not tell Yu about his fortune-telling experience in the temple. It took too much explanation on the phone, but he did ask Yu to check into a company under Little Tiger’s name, which had its offices in Beijing.

  The morning session went on. Chen rose to get himself a cup of coffee. Leaning back against the chair, he reviewed the temple scene. Xing’s talk about Jiang and Dong was crucial. So Chen had some more cards to play, though he was not in a hurry to do so. As for Little Tiger’s involvement, it was like a random harvest, and it could be a possible new direction for him.

  During the intermission, he excused himself and went to the university library. He knew no one would miss him during the remaining session. Both Shasha and Bao were absent. Chen threw himself into research on the library computer. It was really convenient here.

  At the Shanghai Police Bureau, there were only two computers, and many people waiting for access. What was worse, most of the search engines were blocked by the government. What information came up was that available in official newspapers, which helped little. Besides, Chen did not want to do the job in the bureau with all his colleagues moving around. Here on the campus, he worked on the computer without worrying about the possible consequences. The information gathered about Xing was far more detailed, and analytical too. He was beginning to obtain a comprehensive picture of the whole matter.

  He worked on for hours, skipping his lunch.

  Later in the afternoon, he had a discussion with the American host about the delegation’s activities after they left L.A. Their visits to various cities had been scheduled long in advance. According to Professor Reed, however, Perry Turner, the American playwright in charge of their activities in Chicago, had been injured in a car accident. Reed suggested that instead of going to Chicago as scheduled, they might choose a different city.

  “Let’s go to that city. I have forgotten the name of it,” Bao, who made a point of presenting himself at such meetings, suggested in high spirits. “Master Ma used to draw his inspiration from it.”

  “Master Ma-” Little Huang was totally lost.

  “Which Master Ma?” Chen cut in.

  “How many Master Mas are there in American literature?” Bao asked back. “Of course, the master who wrote about-em, the corruption of the American election system.”

  “The election system-” The interpreter remained puzzled as before.

  “Oh, ‘Running for Governor’,” Chen said, turning to Huang. “I have read the story. Let me interpret for Mr. Bao.”

  In the sixties, translation of Western literature into Chinese had been subject to the political criterion. Mark Twain was one of the few chosen because of his “anticapitalist stance,” and the hilarious “Running for Governor” was included in Chinese textbooks as a lampoon against hypocritical American democracy. Bao must have read the story, but the interpreter, born in the seventies, had used different textbooks.

  Chen took over the interpretation. Bao’s idea was not bad, and his constant unhappiness would be appeased by Chen’s choosing to second the proposal and even to interpret it for him.

  “According to Mr. Bao, the hometown of Mark Twain will be a point of interest to us.” Chen continued. “He has been very popular in China.”

  “Yes, Hannibal. That’s not far away from St. Louis. You might spend a day or two there, too.”

  “ St. Louis,” Chen responded. “T. S. Eliot was born in the city.”

  “Great. So it’s decided,” Reed said. “You’ve translated ‘The Waste Land.’”

  Not merely for this reason did the city interest Chen, but he saw no point elaborating on it there. He was glad that Reed made the suggestion, which was readily accepted.

  It was not lines of Eliot but those of Feng Yanshi, a tenth-century Chinese poet, that came to his mind as he left Professor Reed’s room with Bao.

  So many days, where have you been-

  like a traveling cloud

  that forgets to come back,

  unaware of the spring drawing to an end?

  Flowers and weeds spread untrammeled along the road

  on the cold Food Day.

  Your scented coach is tethered to a tree-

  by whose gate?

  Recalling Chinese poetry was perhaps more becoming to the head of a Chinese writers’ delegation, more culturally correct, he reflected with a wry smile, when his cell phone rang again. The number on the screen showed that it was Tian, who spoke with urgency in his voice.

  “Can you come out? You are leaving, I know, but I’ve got something important for you. I’m in the café across the street.”

  “I’ll be there,” Chen said simply.

  In the café, Tian was waiting at a table against the window, and he rose as Chen stepped in.

  “Remember the white mansion I pointed out to you the other day?” Tian said before Chen was seated.

  “It belongs to the politburo member’s son, Little Tiger, right?”

  “Exactly. As a matter of fact, it was Little Tiger that arranged for Xing’s arrival in L.A. He made the down payment for Xing’s house months earlier.”

  “How did you learn all that?”

  “Mimi has been talking about buying a new house in a better area, like Roland Height. It prompted me to talk to Shan, a real estate agent. He happens to be the one who arranged the deal for Xing’s house. Little Tiger put down two hundred thousand dollars. Shan gave me all the detailed information.”

  “That’s incredible!” Chen said. “But why tell you his business secret?”

  “Well, most of the houses there are in the range of one and a half million dollars. So at six percent, the agent gets around ninety thousand dollars. He would do anything for that fee. Indeed, he’d sell his soul to get me to buy in Roland Height-except he’s no Dr. Faust.”

  “You know a lot about real estate business, Tian.”

  “Well, my ex-wife’s present husband is a real estate agent. A man with only a middle-school education, who doesn’t even need that for his business. He simply drives his clients around, with a smile heaped on his face, but he earns more than a professor. Little wonder my ex-wife dumped me for him.”

  “You have proven to be far more successful,” Chen said, understanding why Tian would have a grudge against real estate agents.

  “So Xing and Little Tiger must have been in the same boat for a long time. Partners in their common smuggling business. Xing must have connected at the top in Beijing.”

  “Xing may have lots to do with Little Tiger, but not necessarily with his father.”

  “Come on, Chen. It’s such a notorious case-a teenaged son would not have the guts to keep his involvement from his father.”

  Chen nodded, as the politburo link also accounted for Xing’s flight in the last minutes. The information came from the very top because people at the top had their own interests at stake. Chief Inspector Chen was not simply dealing with a corrupt official with connections, but with the very connections that made the country what it was.

  “And there was something else,” Tian went on, “something I can’t understand.”

  “What?”

  “Xing has talked to Shan about selling his house. Shan asked him why. Xing said that he can hardly pay his legal fees.”

  “That’s impossible! With so much stolen money in his hands, that doesn’t make sense.”

  Xing’
s plan to sell the house was a surprise, though of course, he would not have told the true reasons to a real estate agent. So could there be other possibilities?

  The information Chen had gathered here led him to believe it was a huge gamble that Xing would be granted political asylum in the United States. He might be able to afford the exorbitant attorney fees, but the evidence he had produced so far was hardly convincing. Several experts considered the odds of his being granted asylum extremely slim. The American government was also under pressure from the Chinese. Once deported, Xing knew his fate would be sealed. So what did that mean?

  “I’ve been busy with Shan, looking for houses,” Tian went on. “I almost forgot to choose a present for you. So Mimi has wrapped a case of fish oil for you. And I have just dug out a scroll I bought last year. Allegedly the work of Zhu Sishan, a calligrapher at the beginning of the twentieth century,” Tian said, taking the scroll out of the box. “Possibly a fake, but at least not one of those mass-produced imitations you buy in China.”

  The calligraphy was angular and spirited, as if subtly animated with the qi of the calligrapher. What impressed Chen was the poem copied on the scroll. The poem was entitled “Fisherman,” written by the eighth-century Tang dynasty poet Liu Zongyuan.

  His sampan moored overnight

  by the western hills,

  the old fisherman fetches

  the clear water at dawn, and cooks

  with the southern bamboo.

  Disappearance of the smoke

  against the rising sun

  reveals no one in sight-

  the mountains and water green

  at the sound of the oar, the sampan

  is seen streaming down

  to the horizon,

  only the white clouds left

  to chase each other, inadvertently,

  over the rocks.

  A reminder of the “River Snow” his father had copied. By the same Liu Zongyuan. Whether the scroll was genuine or not, what mattered for Chen was the spirit of the poem, lonely yet uncompromising. It would make an excellent present for his mother. Possibly a message to her as well. Her son might not have followed her husband’s academic path, but there was still something in common between the two.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Chen said. “Remember the lines we read together in Beijing? ‘When you have a good friend in the world, / no matter far away, he’s like your next door neighbor.’”

  “Of course I remember. We read it together while cooking a small pot of white cabbage over an alcohol stove,” Tian said, taking a look out of the window. “Oh, isn’t that the antique worker-poet in your delegation?”

  Sure enough, it was Bao standing outside the hotel, looking in the direction of the café. Then came another surprise. Bao produced a cell phone out of his pants pocket and started dialing. As far as Chen knew, Bao had a hard time making ends meet in Beijing. Now, all of a sudden, Bao had a cell phone here. An unnecessary luxury, which alone would have cost more than his delegation allowance. The hotel phone was covered by the Americans, at least in Los Angeles.

  If the phone call was about Chen, as Chen suspected, what could it possibly mean?

  ***

  After Tian left, Chen continued to think about Bao and his cell phone. Things had been strained between Chen and Bao. Not simply a matter of men of letters belittling each other. In modern Chinese literature, Bao had left his mark as a representative of a particular period, and the foreign visit before his retirement should be a crowning experience for him. But Bao must have found it hard to swallow a younger man’s having been appointed as the delegation head. Bao bore him a grudge, he understood, but there was something more than that.

  Instead of going back to the hotel, Chen used his phone card at a pay phone in the café.

  “I’ve been expecting your call, Chief,” Yu said.

  “How is the weather in Shanghai?”

  “Cloudy, but there seem to be some dark clouds approaching.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s difficult to describe the weather on the phone, you know, so unpredictable.”

  Indeed, it was too difficult to talk the way they had agreed on. The weather terms had worked before, but not this time. There were so many new, unforeseeable factors involved. He wanted to know what Detective Yu had learned.

  “Forget about the weather,” Chen said. “Let’s talk.”

  It was a risk they had to take. Yu’s home line might not be tapped. Chen had not mentioned Yu’s assistance to anyone except Zhao.

  “Kuang has found out about your phone call to An. And he talked to Party Secretary Li about a romantic night you had with her in a fancy restaurant. Little Zhou, who was driving Li that afternoon, overheard the talk. And he told me.”

  “I interviewed An for Xing’s case. In order not to arouse any suspicion, I talked in a flirtatious way.”

  “You don’t have to explain to me. I know that, but others don’t.”

  “I’m not worried about that. Another romantic anecdote probably won’t be the end of the world.”

  “But there may be someone behind Kuang. Otherwise he wouldn’t have the guts to mention it to Li.”

  “Any new discoveries in An’s cell phone record?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Oh, Comrade Zhao is still in Shanghai. I don’t know what he’s doing here.”

  Chen then told Yu what he had just learned about Little Tiger in relation to Xing, in the vaguest terms he could think of.

  “Now we are really touching a tiger’s backside,” Yu concluded.

  19

  IN SPITE OF HER efforts against it, Peiqin found herself getting more and more involved in the investigation.

  She reflected with a self-depreciating smile as she stepped into the hot-water shop. It was located at the entrance of the lane Chen’s mother lived on. Putting on a black, soot-spotted apron, she stood beside the huge coal stove as a “temporary helper.” There was a small cracked mirror on the somber wall. Studying a slightly soot-smudged reflection, she thought she did not look too bad in her late thirties.

  It was hot. One third of the shop consisted of the stove with a gigantic pot and long, serpentine pipes. It was an antique coal-devouring monster, possibly one of the last few remaining in the city. The only thing that might have kept the stove from being put into a city museum was a thermometer, supposedly showing the temperature of the boiling water. She had to shovel coal into the stove regularly.

  She wiped her forehead with a smeared towel, taking another look around the room. She noticed a wood screen close to the back door. Behind the screen, there were several soft-cushioned chairs and a table covered with a plastic foam top. The space was like a private room. She wondered who would need the luxury here.

  Ironically, it took Peiqin some effort to obtain a temporary position- without pay-at this shabby water shop.

  It was all because of Old Hunter’s worries. Since Chen’s departure with the delegation, Old Hunter had patrolled the lane several times, and he thought he had sniffed something. Being an old-fashioned cop, however, he did not think it right for him to patrol an area too much without an official assignment. Besides, it would not be that safe for him to circle the lane time and again. He could have been recognized. So Yu wanted to patrol instead. It seemed to Peiqin that both the father and son were overreacting. As diabolical as Xing and all the red rats might be, what could they gain by hurting an old woman? If anything happened to her, Chen would surely fight back with a vengeance.

  Still, Peiqin had volunteered for a day’s reconnaissance in the neighborhood. She happened to be in a position to help. She had talked so much about the legendary chief inspector to Old Geng, the owner of the private restaurant, that the latter mentioned that he was related to Chang Jiadong, the owner of a hot-water shop at that lane. So Peiqin offered to work there for one day. Both Geng and Chang proved to be very understanding. They made the arrang
ement for her without asking her any questions.

  For the first half an hour, there was no business in the water shop. No one seemed surprised at the sight of her working there, either. With so many people laid off in the city, a middle-aged woman like Peiqin perhaps would consider herself lucky to get any kind of job.

  She decided to read for a while. Nowadays she did not have much time for herself. Even in her state-run restaurant office, things had begun to change. For the sake of profit, there were three shifts instead of one, and she still had to do all the accounting by herself. She took out the dog-eared book, The Dream of the Red Chamber. It was a classic novel she had read numerous times.

  She occasionally wondered why the saga of a Qing aristocratic family so appealed to her. In the novel, what happened to those beautiful, talented yet ill-fated girls was preordained, prerecorded in a mysterious register in a heavenly palace. It was fiction, she knew. She did not believe in the supernatural yin/yang arrangement that prevailed in spite of tragic human effort. But she had come to see her life as a sort of a parallel. For one thing, she had never read any mysteries in her school years during the Cultural Revolution, when she was panic-stricken at the sight of policemen like those who had taken her father away. Afterward, however, she married a police officer, and now she was becoming something like the officer’s private assistant and acting like a character in those mysteries.

  But she did not think she was tragic like those characters in The Dream of the Red Chamber-”her hope as high as the sky, and her fate as thin as the paper.” She considered herself as fairly lucky; Yu working with a secure job at the bureau, and Qinqin studying hard for college. Only all of that could be jeopardized because of those “red rats”-she liked the term coined by Old Hunter. In traditional Chinese culture, red had a lot of connotations. Red was about sensual vanities of the human world, like the red chamber in the novel or the Red Tower in the Xing case. And these red rats were surely sexually depraved. She thought of those pictures of An and her man.