The Wardens of Punyu (The Handover Mysteries, Volume I)

by D. L. Kung

  ‘And Cha Ling? Is that also a growing manufacturing site? These days it’s hard to keep up with developments in each of the counties, you know.’ Slaughter’s pencil tapped a little harder.

  ‘No, Cha Ling. No. Never been there. Maybe good ol’ Victor, maybe he misunderstood. Chai Leung, maybe? Chai Lin? No Cha Ling.’ Chew laughed and ran a hand through his curls with hair gel. ‘Vic’s Chinese not very good. His Cantonese lousy. He’s probably looking for a place that doesn’t exist!’

  Chew glanced around to share the chuckle.

  No one chuckled.

  Harris leaned across the table. ‘Nancy’s Cantonese is just fine, Mr Chew. And she says the place is Cha Ling. Tea mountain. Ring a bell?’

  ‘No, no, Victor got all it wrong and told it wrong to her, right? Right? Nothing to do with me.’

  Slaughter glanced down at his folder once again. ‘Mr Chew, you say you and Mr D’Amato were good friends, presumably because your sister and he were dating? Were you aware that she also enjoyed a rather close relationship with the late Mr Hager?’

  Chew had to think about this for a moment. He tried not to glance over at Nancy for a helpful cue. ‘Maybe close. Maybe far. Not so clear.’

  Nancy said nothing.

  Slaughter looked at Dobbs.

  Dobbs nodded, enough was enough for him. He was a very busy man used to dealing with more high-level contacts and issues, not expats up from Bangkok or local coppers.

  Harris smiled broadly at Nancy’s brother. ‘Well, thank you for your, eh, assistance, Mr Chew. We might have to get in touch with you again, so please let us know if you have to leave town on business.’

  Chew Lo-man was his jovial self once more. ‘I want to help American government in every way. I hope to go to do more business with American companies. There is a big future for American relations with China, commercial relations. This little trade war over CD copyright is no big deal.’

  ‘We’re so happy to hear you think so,’ said Dobbs dryly. Harris escorted the Chew siblings out the door, handing them over to a secretary in the corridor to escort them off the premises.

  Slaughter tapped his manila folder of photos. ‘We’ll be sending copies of this to Bangkok, of course,’ he murmured.

  Claire turned to the policeman. ‘May I ask you something that may have been unimportant? When Nancy Chew said she hoped we caught the murderer, you stiffened up. Was there something in particular?

  ‘Yes,’ said Slaughter. ‘Do you remember her words? ‘If you catch the person who shot Craig. . .’

  ‘Yes? Oh . . . I think I see.’

  The Senior Superintendent looked at her from beneath his heavy sun-bleached eyebrows, half-smiling, half-shaking his head. ‘That’s right. Unless you know otherwise, Claire, to my knowledge, no one inside this room or our forensics lab, has told Miss Chew that Mr Hager suffered a bullet wound.’

  Chapter Five

  —late Monday morning—

  One more try at Vic’s cellphone only confirmed that his battery given out. They hoped it was the only thing that had gone dead at his end.

  Cecilia taxied back to the bureau to resume an anxious vigil while Claire and Harris retreated into his small neat office, complete with corner safe for classified documents and his price lists from Hong Kong’s wine vendors pinned to his corkboard.

  He glanced through the telephone messages discreetly slipped under his blotter, as Claire deposited herself, emotionally exhausted, in the visitor’s chair. She noticed that Harris was not at all wearied by the long session. He acted downright wired, especially after reading one of the messages.

  He sucked in a deep breath, ‘Oh, boy,’ and then turned to Claire. ‘You realize they think Vic did it?’

  Claire closed her eyes and sighed, shaking her head. ‘Oh, no. Vic couldn’t face a deadline, much less a dead body. You know that. You met him at the cocktail introducing new members of the press to consular staff last fall.’

  ‘Well,’ said Harris a little archly, ‘I do remember him as the only guy at a party for fifty reporters and key diplomatic contacts who’d forgotten his name cards.’

  Claire liked Harris but sometimes she thought he’d have been happier working for Metternich, not the Secretary of State. She threw up her hands in mock horror, ‘OK, big deal, Harris, he forgot his calling cards. Yeah, that’s the guy. But some things he wouldn’t forget. We have a rule at Business World. You’re never out of contact. If something comes up or goes wrong, you’re in touch with the bureau. He’s been out of contact with us now for eleven days. OK, maybe our friend is on the lam in his Hush Puppies or . . .’ she hesitated and leaned over towards Harris, ‘something’s happened to him, too.’

  ‘Well, I’m about to make you a happy bureau chief.’ Harris sat straighter in his black imitation leather throne. You said last night on the phone you had a message from Vic in Shanghai as of Friday evening—’

  ‘A telex message, yes.’

  ‘We checked with our Shanghai consulate immediately. All Sunday afternoon our duty officer checked the major and minor hotels. No trace of Vic. Did he have any personal friends in Shanghai to stay with?’

  ‘He’s too new out here for that. I’d say it’s quite unlikely.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. We copied Guangzhou consulate and I just got their response, here.’

  He handed her the memo that had been waiting on his desk, and leaned back resignedly. It was an advisory from Harris’ counterpart in Guangzhou. ‘Chinese authorities Shenzhen border report Hong Kong ID number 4443789 Victor D’Amato registered exit via Shenzhen border crossing Thursday 21:30.’

  Claire blurted out. ‘No way! He sent us a message supposedly from Shanghai the next night. It went into our computers in New York and Hong Kong simultaneously.’

  Harris disregarded her protest. ‘If he was in Hong Kong on Friday, he might have stumbled on the same loving scene you saw Friday afternoon. You might have somehow crossed paths with him. Nancy might or might not know. Vic could have come back later to deal with Hager alone.’

  Claire felt blindsided. How could Vic be in Shanghai and Hong Kong at the same time? If he was in Hong Kong, why hide?

  Harris seemed to read her mind. ‘Computers and telex machines just register what people punch into them. Someone sent a message from Shanghai. Someone carrying his ID passed through the Shenzhen turnstile.’

  Claire took a deep breath. ‘What does Slaughter think?’

  ‘Well, obviously he doesn’t know yet. I’m doing you a favor. Apparently with all the procedural work at Vic’s apartment on Cheung Chau yesterday, not to mention examination of the dead body, the Hong Kong police haven’t had time to run a check with Hong Kong Immigration for any live bodies on this side of the border. I’m telling you first. I’ll call Slaughter after lunch.’

  Claire smiled. ‘I get it. First Vic had to exit from China and walk down that long covered walkway to the Hong Kong terminal checkpoint to enter the colony. You’re saying your guy found out from the Communist side what Slaughter hasn’t checked with the colonial patrol.’

  ‘Don’t relax too much. Slaughter would get to it eventually, even without me, especially as Vic’s disappearance makes him the primary suspect. Slaughter is a very straight and hard-working guy, especially as he knows he’s not exactly Einstein. You know the man better than I. Had he known about Vic crossing back across the border on Thursday, he would have told us. He leaves the cat and mouse games for the Nancy Chews of this world.’

  Claire nodded. ‘We’ve got to find Vic first and tell New York to get him a good lawyer. Can the Consulate help?’

  Harris glanced at her from under raised eyebrows. Claire could guess why. Favors were welcome since they had to be repaid. Official responsibilities were another thing. You had to do those for free. They led to reports, accountability, and career hobbling mistakes if a State officer was unlucky. Publicity, if you were damned. There was a trade war on. And Hong Kong–based US diplomats were already taking a lot of h
eat for knowing more about China than their colleagues up in Beijing. It was pissing off the American ambassador in the Chinese capital.

  Harris even had a mock embroidered sampler hanging on his wall behind his desk reading, ‘If you want to watch your career, go to Beijing. If you want to watch China, stay in Hong Kong.’

  So Harris preferred to work quietly. Some years before, there’d been the New York Times man who’d motorcycled into China’s closed areas and been arrested. And there was the AFP man, an American, who’d been expelled after which he’d given a press conference in Hong Kong wearing Chinese mandarin robes and a silk scholar’s scarf. Claire had to admit that over the years she’d seen enough journalistic grandstanding to understand why an intelligent analyst like Harris with a good career ahead would steer clear of her tribe.

  Her friend took up a sharp pencil, but instead of taking notes, he doodled on a legal pad. Another half-minute passed in silence. Finally, he spoke, still sketching. ‘Did he enter China on a working or a tourist visa? What was he doing?’

  Claire shrugged angrily. She ran her fingers across her scalp to collect her thoughts. ‘I don’t know what he was doing. Some time ago, Cecilia arranged a multiple re-entry tourist visa for him, just routinely. So he must’ve used that. We all need them—or we’d never get any reporting done waiting for the blessing of the New China News Agency’s visa office in Hong Kong. NCNA’s job is to keep us out. On Friday he missed an appointment with MacGinnes over at Brainchild. But then, Vic hadn’t told me about that, either.’

  ‘MacGinnes? Our Commercial guys know him pretty well. A Vietnam vet who’s big with the American Chamber mafia.’

  ‘That’s the one. Laptop exports. He sounded pretty nice, if understandably put out. What do you know about this place Punyu?’

  Harris nodded. ‘I’ve heard of it. Never been there. Ol’ commercial might know something, but from what I hear, it’s not really a proper town, just a big export zone for textile assembly operations. None of the high-tech or university research facilities a computer investor would look for.’

  ‘What else can you do besides checking Shanghai again?’

  ‘Well, let me tell you what the official procedure is,’ said Harris carefully. ‘You officially notify our consular section, which handles the affairs of American citizens. They check all the mainland, Macau or Hong Kong hotels we think likely, and put in a quiet word with friends at the Guangzhou Foreign Ministry.’

  ‘I see. And so, let’s say you do that?’ She wanted to know if she was calling in the dogs, just how many hounds she was getting. Better a few discreet terriers than a wolf pack.

  Harris leaned hard over his knees, hands clasped, voice lowered. For a second Claire wondered if someone was lurking in the doorway, but it was only Harris’s melodramatic side. ‘Well, I wouldn’t recommend the next obvious step. We might get in touch with the police in Guangdong, but the new police chief up there, Chen Shaoji, is under pressure right now to clean up prostitution and karaoke clubs. He’s under the gun to the provincial party boss. His office doesn’t have a whole lot of time for one of your Lost Boys. And we really wouldn’t want their regular police boys to contact their associates over at the PSB.’

  PSB was the Public Security Bureau. Hardly as notorious as the KGB or the Tontons Macoutes, the PSB were just as able to wield tremendous unsupervised authority within their realm. Even worse, the PSB in Guangdong was developing links with the powerful Sun Yee On triad society. The gang was going into ‘joint ventures’ with the Shenzhen city police. In most cases, the Chinese Foreign Ministry would prevent a foreigner from falling into the hands of the PSB for fear that ill treatment could turn into a diplomatic incident.

  Harris murmured, ‘You wouldn’t want the PSB to find your Vic only to arrest him for breaking the regulations governing working foreign journalists in China.’

  ‘—Which might get our magazine banned from reporting in China for at least a year or two,’ added Claire. ‘It seems that my job is already in question. One of the editors in New York laid some pretty heavy hints in that direction, and he didn’t have to tell me there’s somebody who’s ready to take my place. There’s always—”

  ‘Somebody ready to take your place? Same here.’ Harris smiled sympathetically.

  He was giving reasonable advice. Making use of the Guangzhou Foreign Ministry was probably a safe proposition, but beyond that, well, who needed to make an international issue of Vic? His disappearance had to be solved quietly, without arrests and expulsions. As an officer working closely with Guangzhou on behalf of Washington visits from Congress or State, Harris was in regular contact with the personalities of the provincial Foreign Ministry’s external relations department, the ‘wai bann.’ He knew who was who, and which Chinese cultivated ‘guan xi,’ or pull among the Western diplomats.

  ‘Well, I guess that’s it.’ Harris’s attention was wandering to the other messages waiting on his desk.

  Claire persisted as gently as she could. ‘If he’s hurt or in trouble, you might not find him with a few inquiries like that.’

  Harris shrugged. ‘There are restraints to consider, you know, not just the niceties your colleague skirted. Resource restraints.’

  Claire hid her annoyance at his retreat into a bureaucrat’s hedge. Instead she chuckled knowingly.

  ‘I guess you mean not enough guys to waste time on a careless civilian who didn’t play by the rules in the first place?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. But our guys are very busy these days. Guangzhou is the destination for visitors from Washington who want to go to China without going to China, if you see what I mean. We can hardly handle our own workload because we’re so busy escorting one politician or another. We’re heading yet into another spring of debates over human rights in China. A lot of representatives want to see how sincere the Chinese are on the human rights question in direct meetings.’

  ‘Sincere on human rights? We could save them time on that—’

  ‘Beyond that,’ Harris ignored her jibe, ‘US government officers and Hong Kong policemen are not allowed to work inside China without the express permission of the Chinese government. Our consular staff in Guangzhou would be unable to wander around the hinterland without being followed and questioned as soon as they left the Greater Guangzhou City perimeter.’

  Claire stood up to leave. She gazed out Harris’ window, playing for time. His office looked out over the rear of the Consulate building with jungle foliage rising up the hill toward the colonial governor’s residence.

  ‘Harris, did you ever have an American before who just got lost in China and didn’t come back?’

  ‘Frankly, no. And frankly,’ said Harris, ushering her back down the corridor in full official voice. ‘I’d like to keep it that way. I’ve already told you the correct procedure in my official capacity. We’ll certainly move ahead with these inquiries.’

  He lowered his voice and took her arm. She could smell his lime cologne as they headed down the corridor. ‘Now, let me give another piece of advice. Have you ever seen our water cooler? C’mon over here and take a closer look.’

  ‘Um, it’s very nice.’

  ‘It’s also not bugged. Get on the next through-train to Guangzhou and find that asshole pronto. Everybody would be a whole lot happier if you found him first.’

  Claire headed back to her bureau, where Cecilia was sitting with Cheng Ming’s political section neatly propped in front of her. She was typing out a rough translation of a cover story on Taiwan’s arms industry—background notes for a story by Vic. Claire dumped her bag and jacket on the chair inside her private office and returned to hear Cecilia’s list of messages.

  ‘Two e-mails from McDermott asking if Vic is back from Shanghai yet. The printouts are on your desk. And a call from Father Fresnay asking if you still want him to send over some material on organ transplants he mentioned over the weekend?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m heading across the border tomorrow morning. First to Punyu to
haul back the ass of Hong Kong’s Greatest Living Investigative Reporter Cum Murder Suspect and put him on a train to Shenzhen, and then to head straight over to the head of the renal department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences in Guangzhou for a little chat.’

  ‘I really don’t get it. We thought he was in Shanghai.’ Cecilia said.

  ‘Harris thinks he returned Thursday night to Hong Kong.’

  ‘Hager and Nancy Chew said he went to Punyu . . . but that’s only what they said.’

  ‘When in doubt, let’s trust the least trustworthy, but Cecilia, you’re displaying the devious, inscrutable mind of the East.’

  Cecilia smiled and returned to her translation. ‘It’s my pleasure.’

  ***

  Claire made herself supper at home alone, just a tomato salad with a grilled cheese sandwich. She ate amply enough when Xavier was dining with her—hearty Swiss fare like butter-laden rösti or bratwurst in onion sauce that relieved his palate exhausted by Asian ‘delicacies.’ This Alp-bred man, who boasted of being a Suisse primitif, spent his travels nibbling politely, if not courageously, at the innumerable fishy banquets laid on for his ostensible pleasure.

  In North Korea, he’d been invited to peel the flesh off a large, live, white carp still blinking at him throughout the entire evening. In China he was honored with grilled miniature scorpions thrown live into boiling oil. He was still in gastric recovery.

  Tonight Xavier was back in his room at the Hotel Victoria with its view from twenty stories high above the Macau jetfoil terminal. He wanted to catch up with paperwork. Claire hoped he would call to say goodnight, but she was damned if she would call him. She was playing this relationship by new rules. The three p’s: no pining, no pouting, no pressure—and she liked herself better for it.

  Carrying the tray into her study, Claire settled down to tackle the Vic problem. She was no scholar, but this room was just as much her cocoon for thought as Mosque Junction was for Fresnay. In an aqua silk dressing gown tailored by Mr Sun down on Anson Street, her thick red hair held with a jade comb, some silver Tibetan bangles, she was as completely at home amid her books and sheet music as she would be anywhere. She’d often wondered if she would ever need more. Her only problem, she had once concluded, was that she liked making love to men. One at a time, and not just any man . . .