A Loyal Character Dancer

by Qiu Xiaolong

  He thought he had lost the mood, but Peiqin’s caresses eventually worked.

  Chapter 36

  The airplane was delayed again.

  Inspector Rohn, Wen, Detective Yu, and Party Secretary Li, Sergeant Qian, everyone except Chief Inspector Chen, was at Shanghai ’s Hongqiao International Airport, standing by the arrival/departure monitor, which as yet showed no departure time scheduled for the United Airlines flight to Washington, D.C.

  According to Detective Yu, Chief Inspector Chen was on his way to the airport. Yu had heard from him an hour earlier. That was not like the punctual chief inspector. Inspector Rohn was concerned. Since their meal last night at the Yus’, she had not heard from him. In spite of the “successful conclusion” of her mission, as Party Secretary Li had put it, some of the questions they had had during the investigation remained unanswered. And the flight would take off, if not further delayed, in only one and a half hours.

  The afternoon sunlight sifted through the tall window. Wen stood alone, her face pallid, lifeless, like an alabaster mask except for the bluish smudges of stress under her eyes. Yu was busy making inquiries about the weather in Tokyo. Qian, whom Catherine met for the first time, seemed a dapper young man who spoke in a pleasing manner and offered to fetch drinks for them. Secretary Li once more harped on the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples. Catherine excused herself and went to Wen’s side.

  She found it hard to offer comfort in Chinese. “Don’t worry, Wen,” she said, repeating what she had said in Suzhou. “If there is anything I can do for you in the United States, I will do it.”

  “Don’t worry, Inspector Rohn,” Wen echoed. “Your work here is successfully completed.”

  She did not feel “successful.” As she tried to find something else to say, she saw Chen and Liu enter the airport carrying several plastic shopping bags.

  “Oh, Liu Qing’s has come with Chief Inspector Chen to see you off!” Catherine exclaimed.

  “What?” Party Secretary Li hurried over to them. Yu and Qian followed. Wen took a step backward in disbelief.

  “I have brought Comrade Liu from Suzhou, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “I did not have time to ask for your approval.”

  “Liu has cooperated with us,” Catherine said. “We could not have succeeded in persuading Wen without his help. They should have the chance to say good-bye.”

  “Not just that, Inspector Rohn. There is something further I need to discuss with Comrade Wen Liping,” Chen said. “Let’s move to the airport meeting room over there. We have to talk.”

  It was an oblong meeting room, elegantly furnished with a marble table and two rows of leather-covered chairs, where city officials met distinguished foreign guests during their brief, temporary stays in Shanghai. Catherine seated herself with Wen and Liu on one side of the table, Chen with his colleagues on the other. At the end of the meeting room, there was a small anteroom, in which the travelers could relax on the sectional sofas.

  “Inspector Rohn, Party Secretary Li, Detective Yu, I apologize for having not discussed a new development with you,” Chen said.

  Catherine looked at Yu, and then at Li, and they both looked back at her in puzzlement. She noticed that Chen did not address Qian, who seemed to be fidgeting with his drink. Was it because Qian was just one of his low-level subordinates?

  “Where were you last night?” Yu was the first to ask. “I waited for your call for hours.”

  “Well, my original plan was to bring Old Hunter with me to a meeting with Gu Haiguang, but Gu called me first and wanted to meet me alone, earlier. So I came to your dumpling feast early and then met with Gu.”

  “You did not tell me about this appointment,” Catherine said.

  “I had no clue as to what Gu was going to say. Then there was no time to fill you in. I had Little Zhou drive me to Suzhou immediately. Liu had a late business meeting. I waited until he came home, spoke with him, and we started back before dawn. That’s why we have just made it to the airport.” Chen paused to take a breath, saying in a suddenly official tone. “Inspector Rohn, can you promise us one thing on behalf of the U.S. Marshals?”

  “What’s that, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “As soon as you arrive in the United States, relocate Wen and Feng. At once.”

  “That’s what we planned, but why the urgency, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “Because the gangsters will make every attempt to harm Wen even after she joins Feng.”

  “Why?” Yu took out a cigarette.

  “It’s a long story. The Flying Axes learned about Feng’s deal in the States early in January, weeks before Wen started to make her passport application. She preferred to stay in Fujian rather than go to live with him. But they coerced her into a conspiracy: she was to join Feng and then to poison him. They promised to get her out of trouble afterward. She agreed. Not because she hated Feng so much that she wanted to kill him, but because she knew what the gangsters would do to her if she refused.

  “Now the situation is even more complicated,” Chen went on, heedless of the effect of his revelation upon his audience. “Once she gets there, she will be in danger not only from the Flying Axes, but from the Green Bamboo as well. The latter have a branch in the United States. They present a very serious threat to her.”

  “What are you talking about?” Yu asked again. “What do these Green Bamboo have to do with anything?”

  “The Green Bamboo is an international gang, far larger and more powerful than the Fujian-based Flying Axes. In their effort to extend their operations, and to take over the human smuggling operation in the Fujian area, they planned to extort crucial information from Feng by holding Wen as a hostage. In fact, it was the Green Bamboo, not the Flying Axes, that approached Feng in the United States. And they were the masked men who attacked us in Changle Village.”

  “How did you learn all this, Chief Inspector Chen?” Li said.

  “I will explain everything in due course, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said, turning to Wen. “Comrade Wen, I now understand why you changed your mind about the passport application, why you wanted to stay with Liu, and why you insisted on going back to Fujian. If you were going to the United States, you needed to bring with you the poison the Flying Axes had given you. You had left it behind when you fled on April fifth.”

  Wen did not utter a word but as Liu touched her shoulder lightly, she dropped her face into her hands and began to sob.

  “Feng ruined your life. The gangsters gave you no choice. The local police did a poor job protecting you. You had to think of your baby,” Chen continued. “Any woman in your position would have considered doing the same thing.”

  “But you cannot, Wen,” Liu said in an emotional voice. “You must start a new life for yourself.”

  “Liu has done such a lot for you, Wen,” Catherine interjected. “If you do something stupid, what will happen to him?”

  Chen said, “I am not saying this to scare you, but you have stayed with him for a couple of weeks. People will suspect that you two planned it together. And Liu will be held responsible.”

  “I cannot see how Liu can keep out of trouble if anything happens to Feng.” Yu added, “People must find somebody to punish.”

  “Nor can I see how the Flying Axes will be able to get you out of trouble afterward,” Li joined in.

  “They won’t be able to,” Qian said, speaking up the first time, like an echo.

  “I’m sorry, Liu,” Wen sobbed, clutching Liu’s hand. “I did not think. I would rather die than get you into trouble.”

  “Let me tell you something about my Heilongjiang years,” Liu said. “My life was a long tunnel without any light at the end. Thinking of you made the only difference. Thinking of you holding the red loyal character with me on the railway platform. A miracle. If that was possible, anything might be possible. So I hung on. And everything changed for me in 1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Believe me: Things will change for you, too.”

 
; “As I promised you in Suzhou,” Chen said, “nothing will happen to Liu as long as you cooperate with the Americans. Now, in the presence of Comrade Party Secretary Li, I’m making the same promise.”

  “Chief Inspector Chen is right,” Li said with all sincerity. “As an old Bolshevik with forty years in the Party, I, too, give you my word. If you act properly, nothing will happen to Liu.”

  “Here is an English dictionary.” Yu took out of his pants pocket a dog-eared book. “My wife and I were both educated youths. In Yunnan, I never dreamed that some day I would become a Shanghai cop speaking English with an American officer. Things change. Liu is right. Take the dictionary. You will have to speak English there.”

  “Thank you, Detective Yu.” Liu accepted it for Wen. “It will be most helpful.”

  “Here is something else.” Chen produced an envelope, which contained the picture of Wen leaving Shanghai as an educated youth, the picture used in the Wenhui Daily.

  Catherine took it for Wen, who still had her face buried in her hands, sobbing inconsolably.

  Twenty years earlier, at the railway station, a turning point in her life…Catherine gazed at the picture, and then at Wen. Now at the airport, another turning point in her life, but Wen was no longer the young, spirited Red Guard loyal character dancer looking forward to her future.

  “One thing about the witness protection program,” Catherine said quietly. “People can leave at their own risk. We do not recommend it. Still, things may change. In several years, when the triads have been wiped out. I may be able to discuss a new arrangement with Chief Inspector Chen.”

  Wen looked up through her tears, but she did not say anything. Instead, she reached into her purse, produced a small package, and handed it over to her. “Here is the stuff the Flying Axes gave me. You don’t have to say more, Inspector Rohn.”

  “Thank you,” Chen and Yu said, in chorus.

  “Now that she has promised full cooperation with you,” Liu said, casting a glance at the adjoining small room, “can we have some time for ourselves?”

  “Of course.” Catherine said promptly. “We’ll wait here.”

  Chapter 37

  After Wen and Liu had retired, Catherine Rohn turned to Chen, who made an apologetic gesture to the remaining people.

  “Now, it’s story time, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said dryly. The latest development had surprised her, though probably less than his Chinese colleagues. During the last few days, she had more than once sensed something going on with the enigmatic chief inspector.

  “This has been an extraordinary investigation, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “I had to make decisions without being able to consult you or my colleagues, to act on my own responsibility. And I withheld some information because I was not sure of its relevance. So if you hear something you’ve not heard before, please be patient and let me explain.”

  Li said expansively. “You had to make such decisions under the circumstances. We all understand.”

  “Yes, we all understand,” Catherine felt obliged to echo, but she decided to take the questioning into her own hands before it turned into a political lecture. “When did you become suspicious of Wen’s intentions, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “I did not think about her motives at first. I assumed she was going to the United States because Feng wanted her to, it was obvious. But I was disturbed by a question you raised, the question about the delay in her passport application. So I looked into the process. It was slow, but there was also an inconsistency about the dates. In spite of Feng’s claim that she started in early January, Wen did not do anything until mid-February.”

  “Yes, we discussed that briefly,” she said.

  “From Detective Yu’s detailed report, I came to see a picture of her terrible life with Feng. From those interview tapes, I also learned that Feng called her quite a number of times in early January, and that on one occasion Wen was not willing to come to the phone. So I assumed that Wen was refusing to leave at that point.”

  “But Feng said she was most eager to join him.”

  “Feng did not tell you the truth. Too much loss of face for a man to admit his wife’s reluctance,” he said. “What caused her change of her mind? I checked with the Fujian police. They said they did not put any pressure on her. That I believed, considering their indifference throughout the investigation. And then I found something else in Detective Yu’s report.”

  “What’s that, Chief?” Detective Yu did not try to conceal the bafflement in his voice.

  “Some of the villagers seemed to be aware of Feng’s problem in the United States. Since the word they used-’problem’- could refer to anything, at first I thought that they might have gotten wind of Feng’s fight in New York, for which he was arrested. But then Manager Pan used another word, saying he had heard of Feng’s ‘deal’ with the Americans before her disappearance. ‘Deal,’ that’s unmistakable. If that information was available to the villagers, I did not see why the gangsters would have waited so patiently until Inspector Rohn was on her way here. They could have abducted Wen earlier.”

  “And much more easily,” Yu added. “Yes, I overlooked that.”

  “The gangsters had reasons for trying to beat us in the race for Wen. But as those accidents kept happening in Fujian and Shanghai, I started wondering. Why were they so desperate, all of a sudden? A lot of resources must have been tapped. And cops involved, too. After what happened in the Huating Market last Sunday, I became really suspicious.”

  “Last Sunday,” Li said. “I suggested you take a day off, right?”

  “Yes, we did,” Catherine replied. “Chief Inspector Chen and I went shopping. There was a raid on the street market. Nothing happened to us.” She equivocated, mindful of the fact that Party Secretary Li seemed surprised. “So you knew something then, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “No. I guessed, but things were not clear to me. To be honest, there are one or two things I do not grasp even today.”

  “Chief Inspector Chen did not want to make a false alarm, Inspector Rohn,” Yu intervened hastily.

  “I understand.” She did not think it necessary for Yu to rush to defend his boss, who had raised valid alarms-not false ones. “Still-”

  “The investigation has been full of twists and turns, Inspector Rohn. I’d better try to recapitulate chronologically. We each had our suspicions at various stages of the investigation, and discussed them. It was your observations that more than once threw light on the situation.”

  “You are being very diplomatic, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “No, I am not. Do you remember our talk in the Verdant Willow Village? You called my attention to a fact: Despite Feng’s request in his last phone call to Wen, she did not try to contact him when she reached an apparently safe place.”

  “Yes, that puzzled me, but I was not so sure then that she was in a safe place. That was the seventh or eighth day of her disappearance, I think, the day we had that discussion in the restaurant.”

  “Then in Deda Cafe, you convinced me that Gu knew something more than what he had told us. That prompted me to explore further in that direction.”

  “Oh no, I cannot take credit for that. At the club, you had already told Gu about your connection with the Traffic Control Office-” She stopped herself at a glance from Chen. Had he told Party Secretary Li about the parking lot deal? Or even the visit to the club?

  “You did an excellent job in dealing with a man like Gu, Chief Inspector Chen,” Li commented. “ ‘You have to fish for a golden turtle with a sweet-smelling bait.’”

  “Thank you, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said with surprise. “And then in the evening after the Beijing Opera, following your instruction, I walked Inspector Rohn back to the hotel. On our way, we had some drinks in Bund Park. There I mentioned the two cases I had been assigned to on the same day-the park victim case, and the search for Wen. She touched on the possible connection between the two. I had never thought about such a possibility until that ev
ening. More importantly, she discussed the ax wounds on the body in connection with a Mafia novel, in which a murder was committed in such a way as to direct suspicion onto to a rival gang-”

  “The ax wounds suggested a triad killing. It was a signature,” Li cut in, “as Detective Yu pointed out at the outset.”

  “Yes, it’s called the death by Eighteen Axes,” Yu observed. “The highest form of punishment inflicted by the Flying Axes.”

  “That’s true, and that’s exactly what made me suspicious. Wasn’t such a signature too obvious? So Inspector Rohn’s comment started me thinking of another possibility. The victim in Bund Park could have been killed by somebody in deliberate imitation of the Flying Axes to cast the blame on them. As a result, the Flying Axes had to look into the matter and lose their focus on the search for Wen. Besides, muddying the water diverted the attention of the police, too. Under that hypothesis, who benefited? Someone with an even higher stake in the race to find Wen.”

  “I’m beginning to see, Chief Inspector Chen,” Yu said.

  “So you deserve the credit, Inspector Rohn. In spite of my suspicions, I was as puzzled as anybody else, unable to put the pieces together into a comprehensible whole. Your comments really helped.”

  “Thank you, Inspector Rohn. It’s a marvelous example of the fruitful collaboration between the police forces of our two countries. Almost like the tai chi symbol, yin in perfect match with yang-” Li stopped abruptly, coughing with a hand against his mouth.

  She understood. As a high-ranking Party official, Li had to be careful in his speech, even in using a seemingly harmless metaphor, which nevertheless crossed the line, due to the male and female elements suggested by the ancient symbol.

  “I also got a call from Old Hunter that evening,” Chen went on. “He told me that Gu had called to ask for information about a missing Fujianese. That was a surprise. Gu had told us about a mysterious visitor from Hong Kong. Why was Gu looking for a Fujianese? So that evening in Bund Park put me on the right track for the first time.”