by Qiu Xiaolong
Lenich had a point. This could be a far more complicated case. Chen also realized that there was something unusual about the trip-not just concerning Little Huang, but other members of the delegation as well.
Bao, for instance, seemed to be following Chen in a mysterious way. Bao had been grumbling about Chen being in charge, but that could hardly account for him spying on Chen. Shasha, too, puzzled Chen with her inscrutable inquisitiveness. And Peng, with his baffling reticence. Indeed, why was he included in the group? He hardly wrote anymore, or even talked like a writer. Was his presence simply symbolic? As for Zhong, he made a point of calling back to China. Supposedly to his old wife in Nanjing, but once, when consulting Chen about the instructions on the back of the phone card, he let slip the area code, revealing that his call went to Beijing instead. Any one of them could have been entrusted with a secret mission unknown to Chen, the delegation head appointed at the last minute.
He didn’t discuss any of this with Detective Lenich, yet it made sense, Chen agreed, for the American to check the Chinese writers’ alibis-except Chen himself. Someone in the bookstore had already confirmed that Chen was reading and drinking coffee during that time period. He remembered Chen as being the only Chinese there, that he spoke “slightly quaint English with an accent.”
The other delegation members were not so lucky. Shasha was the one who followed Huang in the sequence of using Chen’s bathroom. She had only her own word that she hadn’t seen him since. Bao claimed that he went to the Chinese buffet restaurant, spending about two hours there because of “eating as much as you can.” Afterward he chatted with the buffet owner, yet the latter couldn’t remember when Bao arrived at the restaurant. Peng said that he took a nap as soon as he checked in, sleeping until the time of the political study. While it sounded plausible for a man of his age, no one could prove it. Zhong maintained that he strolled around the shopping mall before eating at the Chinese Express. No one there remembered seeing him, with customers coming and going all the time, and Zhong did not see Chen or Bao.
So Detective Lenich had a lot to do, following up on his new direction.
It was not until after five that the American cop finished talking with the writers. Chen, too, felt obliged to talk to the delegation. A speech of formalities, though not a long one.
“We have to be more careful,” Chen said. “To ensure the safety of the delegation, we have to reemphasize our disciplines. And I want to repeat a few of them: Do not go out by yourself. Do not go out without reporting to the delegation head. Do not meet with unknown people. In addition, turn in your passports, so they will be under my special care.”
These were not new rules. During the early stage of China ’s first opening its door, Chinese delegations abroad had to follow the rules literally. A considerable number of people defected then, either by disappearing or seeking political asylum. So they were supposed to go out only in groups, with one watching another, and with their passports under the care of the delegation head. But things had since improved. Most of the delegations were made up of those doing well in China. They would be unlikely to gamble on an uncertain future overseas.
“If you have any questions, you can ask our interpreter, Catherine Rohn,” Chen concluded. “She has been doing a great job for us.”
“But what do we do in the evening?” Shasha said. “She won’t be here with us all the time.”
It was a good point, so Chen requested that Catherine stay with them at the hotel, at least for one or two days. It appeared to be a very reasonable request. Chen himself was busy with many things, and there needed to be an interpreter around for the Chinese writers.
She agreed quietly. “It’ll save me downtown traffic in the morning.”
The hotel manager cooperated promptly. Instead of giving her the room Huang had occupied, he promised her another one on the same floor as the delegation. Chen was pleased with the arrangement. Perhaps later, after the delegation political study, he would run into her in the corridor.
***
And he did, only earlier. As the delegation was having their evening political study, Catherine called into Chen’s room.
“Miss Rohn wants me to come and discuss tomorrow’s activity,” Chen said to the delegation at the end of the phone conversation. “Americans like to stick to their schedules.”
“That’s true,” Shasha said. “They have to cook with the recipe in their hands. No improvisation or imagination. But she is so attractive, and speaks good Chinese too.”
To his surprise, Chen found Detective Lenich in Catherine’s room. Her true identity, as a U.S. marshal, was no longer being kept from the American investigator. She was dressed in shorts, sandals, and a light yellow T-shirt. She must have taken a shower, her hair still wet. She started making a fresh pot of coffee for Chen.
Detective Lenich elaborated on his theory. “The murder was a collaboration between an outsider and an insider. An insider to point out the target, and an outsider with a car to move the body. My colleagues have made a more thorough search of Huang’s room. Nothing there matched the fiber found on his clothes, and the bus in which the delegation traveled to St. Louis is equipped with imitation leather seats.”
But this theory opened up a number of new questions, Chen observed. For such collaboration, the plan must have been made far in advance. That afternoon, the delegation was originally scheduled to arrive for lunch at the hotel, but, because of a traffic accident along the highway, they arrived several hours late. Then there was the unforeseeable factor of Little Huang’s bath in his room. So the outsider in Detective Lenich’s conspiracy theory would have had to wait hours outside of the hotel, and the insider-a delegation member-would have had to be there too, see Little Huang walking out, and point him out to the murderer. And during that time period, there must have been some contact between the insider and outsider.
Lenich had checked with the hotel phone service. Nothing. It was no surprise, Chen thought. He himself had made a point of not using the hotel phone except for official business. For such a murderous conspiracy, the hotel phone would have been unacceptable. The only phone calls Detective Lenich had discovered were from Shasha’s to Chen’s room. And another one from the lobby house phone-possibly a wrong number, since no one spoke when it bounced back from Chen’s room to the hotel operator.
“A room-to-room call,” Detective Lenich commented. “It was around five-forty. No one picked up. It proves only one thing. Little Huang must have stepped out of the room by that time. Incidentally, that also rules out Shasha as a suspect.”
They then discussed the delegation activity for the next day. Lenich thought the Chinese writers had better remain in the hotel, but Chen said that they had been complaining. It would be hard to keep them in for another long frustrating day.
“Let’s go to the Arch,” Catherine suggested. “It’s close to the hotel. If there is any new development, Detective Lenich can come over.”
Lenich and Chen left her room around ten-thirty. She walked them to the door with a wan smile. It had been a long, exhausting day, and she looked pale in the corridor light. Chen then accompanied the American cop to the hotel’s front gate.
Back in his room, he found several fax pages about Little Huang from the Chinese Writers’ Association. The information from the official channels showed nothing suspicious in his background. He didn’t start working for the association immediately after graduation; he was assigned to teach a middle school. He got the job at the Writers’ Association when another interpreter suddenly quit. He was reliable and easy to get along with; though not a Party member, he was given the opportunity to serve as interpreter for delegations visiting abroad. This was Huang’s third trip out of China. The last page of the fax also detailed a change in the arrangements for Little Huang’s family’s trip to the U.S. His father had suffered a severe heart attack upon learning the news.
There was also a fax from Fang, his former schoolmate at the Beijing Foreign Language University. It
provided more background information about Huang in his college years. A hardworking student from a poor family in Anhui Province, he had worked as a TA for a professor and as a part-time English tutor over weekends. In his student years, Huang hardly had any time for political activities. “He also liked poetry,” Fang added in conclusion, “like you. I think that’s why he went to work for the Writers’ Association.”
Around eleven-thirty, a call came from Catherine.
“Sorry to phone you so late, Mr. Chen,” she said. “I hope you’re not in bed yet.”
“No. I’m not. I thought about calling you too, but a fax came in.”
“I just wanted to double-check our schedule. Eight-thirty tomorrow morning, right?”
“Yes, eight-thirty. Down in the lobby.”
“It’s the first interpreter-escort experience for me. I don’t want to let our Chinese writers down.”
“You are so conscientious.”
“Detective Lenich is an experienced investigator. Don’t worry. Whatever I can do, let me know.” She added, “It’s been a hectic day. Don’t stay up too late.”
“No, I won’t. You take good care of yourself too.”
Nothing but business talk between a Chinese delegation head and an American interpreter. Both knew their telephone lines might be tapped.
Still, she didn’t have to make the call.
Afterward, he looked out of the window, thinking of a Tang dynasty poem Ezra Pound had also translated. He might include it in his talk on the translation of classical Chinese poetry, if he was going to give another one during the remaining days of the visit.
Waiting, she finds her silk stockings
soaked with the dew drops
glistening on the marble palace steps.
Finally, she is moving
to let the crystal-woven curtain fall
when she casts one more glance
at the glamorous autumn moon.
23
I T’LL BE A HECTIC day, Catherine awoke thinking, as if still echoing last night’s conversation, in the company of Chen.
But it was too early. Alone, in her hotel room, she did not want to get up immediately. It was sort of an indulgence to let her mind wander, like a horse unbridled for a short moment, before she braced herself for the day’s work.
She wondered what Chen was doing at the moment, on the same floor, in the same hotel.
She had heard about Chen’s visit before his arrival in the U.S. The CIA had approached her. The unexpected appointment of Chen must have appeared suspicious to them, more so because the change came at the last minute. The CIA was well aware of Chen’s background and his work on an important anticorruption case, which was further complicated by Xing’s application for political asylum. They wondered whether Chen was really here on an untold mission under cover of the literature conference. The Beijing authorities could just have easily chosen somebody else for the delegation.
She hadn’t told anything to the CIA. She didn’t have anything to tell. Since their difficult yet memorable joint investigation in Shanghai, they had barely been in contact with each other, both being aware of their positions.
In China, they had talked about a reunion in the U.S. She had been looking forward to it. So had he, she believed. But when he did come over, he never called her. Busy, understandably so, with a government delegation under him, but not too busy to phone-unless he really was engaged in a special mission. Still, she had expected to hear from him. Even when he arrived in St. Louis, except for a silent message on her answering machine, she’d heard nothing. She didn’t really blame him, but his priorities were obvious.
What had happened to him since their parting in Shanghai, she didn’t know. Smooth sailing in his political career, she supposed. His delegation position spoke for itself. She believed, however, that he had got the position on merit. If Beijing had wanted him to work on the Xing case here, a much better cover should have been arranged. In fact, the CIA learned about his investigation by reading about it in the Chinese newspapers.
Nor did she know anything new about his personal life. He had a girlfriend from a high-ranking cadre family in Beijing, but the relationship was described as “not exactly working out.” On the immigration form, he had still circled himself as single. Then she checked herself, sitting up on the bed and hugging her knees against her chin. She was a marshal and assigned to a homicide case here.
She moved to the window. Looking out, she couldn’t see the U.S. Marshals office building, which wasn’t far from the hotel. This was her city, the streets not yet jammed with the traffic, hardly a pedestrian in sight. Those mornings in Shanghai, strolling on the Bund, seemed so long ago, irrecoverably blurred. A cloud was riding across the sky, steady in its direction.
They had worked together on an anti-illegal immigration case in China, and came to know each other with mutual admiration. But their work came to a conclusion, and they parted, as in the poem he had read to her, rubbing her strained ankle, in the ancient Suzhou garden, “grateful, and glad / to have been with you, / the sunlight lost on the garden.” It was a moment they’d shared and lost. So that’s about it, she told herself again.
When her boss had wanted her to join the delegation as an interpreter-escort, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. She wasn’t so sure, however, about the triple task the CIA specified: finding out Chen’s real mission, helping to solve the homicide, and preventing anything else from happening to the delegation.
The first part was practically impossible. Whatever the circumstance of their meeting, she hardly expected him to give her a straightforward answer. He was a conscientious Chinese cop, and a Party cadre-no mistake about it. As he had quoted from Confucius, there are things a man can do, and there are things a man cannot do.
For the second part, she didn’t think she could help much, not having been trained as a homicide investigator. That was up to Lenich and his colleagues. Still, she wondered about the possibility of a political conspiracy behind the homicide case. She was going to try her best. She shuddered at the possibility of anything happening to Chen. Her personal concerns aside, a disastrous international case wouldn’t serve the interests of either country.
The phone started ringing. The call was from her boss, Director Spencer, of U.S. Marshals, St. Louis Office.
“You made the right decision in staying at the hotel with them,” Director Spencer commented in approval. “Both the CIA and the marshals will do whatever necessary to help. Just tell us what you need.”
“What I really need is more background information on the Xing case,” she said, “not just because of how it relates to Chen, but because it might be relevant to the homicide case as well. As detailed as possible.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I’ll need a laptop. So I can work from my hotel room.”
“I’ll have it delivered. By the way, does Chen have a computer with him?”
“I don’t think so, but I’ll double-check.”
Shortly after she hung up with him, a call came in from Bao. “Can we go out in a group today?”
“I think it’s okay, and we are going to the Arch-in a group.”
“Really! You should have told me earlier.”
“Mr. Chen, Detective Lenich, and I discussed it late last night. He may not have had the time to tell you.”
The next call was unexpected, from Zhong, just as she was about to head to the shower.
“I thought about it all night. I don’t think Little Huang went out with any special plan. Before he left, he took a long bath in Chen’s room. No less than twenty-five minutes. I should have discussed it with Detective Lenich, but no one would have taken such a long, luxurious bath if he had some plan in mind.”
Again it was difficult for her to respond. Zhong might have a point, but how could he be so sure that the bath took “no less than twenty-five minutes”? Perhaps Lenich was right. There was something strange about the delegation. She had a feeling that she might have to
be here for quite a few days.
“You should raise this with Detective Lenich today.”
“He’s going to be with us all day again today?” Zhong snapped. “That’s absurd!”
“Oh, we are going to the Arch, but he won’t be with us. He’ll be working in the hotel, and you can always contact him.”
It couldn’t be easy to be an interpreter-escort under normal circumstances, let alone this far-from-the-normal situation. The Chinese seemed to be in a collective lousy mood; the investigation meant a prolonged stay in St. Louis, with all sorts of restrictions imposed. Detective Lenich’s questions, while quite routine, must have sounded unpleasant to the Chinese, she thought as she took her shower. As she stepped out, still wrapped in a towel, the phone shrilled again.
“Sorry to call so early in the morning, Catherine,” Chen said.
“You aren’t that early. This is the third or fourth call this morning.” She took a look at the clock, drying her hair with the towel. Not even eight yet. “I’ll come down. We’re meeting at eight-thirty, right?”
“Yes. Yesterday I tried to talk to hotel security, but we didn’t have time. So this morning I thought you might be able to help me before we leave. Just a few questions. It won’t take too long.”
“Fine, I’ll be down in one minute.”
She dressed quickly and headed down to the lobby. She saw him standing in a corner, toying with a cell phone in his hand, a plastic bag on the chair beside him. He was dressed in a three-piece black suit with a scarlet silk tie. He looked like a Chinese official.
“Good morning, Miss Rohn.”
“Morning, Mr. Chen.”
“Look, I called you with this cell phone,” he said smiling. “Last night, Detective Lenich talked about the hotel phone records. There’s one thing I forgot to tell him. Two of us also have cell phones. Bao and I. I have to call China while traveling from one city to the next; my mother is in poor health. The prepaid cell phone is expensive. I don’t know how and why Bao has one. I don’t even know his number.”
