by Alan Carter
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘How’s he been?’
‘Same as ever. Crap jokes. Forgets everything. Sleeps a lot. How’s Shanghai?’
‘Big, busy. So far, I like it.’
‘I didn’t think it would be your cup of tea.’
‘Shanghai?’
‘China in general.’
‘Where were Dad’s mob from, do you know?’
‘Ballarat. Before that, who knows? Why?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Have you been drinking? You sound funny.’
Cato was aware of a surge of feeling, a hotness in his face. ‘Yeah, a couple of Tsingtaos.’
‘Don’t forget the old man’s warning. Look after yourself over there, okay?’
‘Sure, no worries. G’night sis.’
He’d also tried Jane’s and Jake’s mobiles. Both were switched off.
The room was already hot with thick hazy sunlight spilling through his window. He zapped the aircon into action and pulled back the curtains. The sky was a muted gauzy pale blue with distant dark clouds holding the promise of an afternoon storm. He headed for the bathroom and spotted the note that had been shoved under his door.
Our phones are tapped. Meet me in the hotel gym @ 10. L
He found Lara on a treadmill jogging steadily, sweat beading her brow and darkening her singlet. She’d reserved the machine next to her by draping a towel over it. The gym was noisy, thumping music overflowed from an aerobics class in an adjoining room. Good choice for a clandestine meeting, thought Cato. He stepped on the treadmill and set off at a leisurely walking pace. Lara pushed up to a sprint for a minute or two then dropped down to join him on his gentle perambulations.
‘My nanna walks faster than this,’ she said, still looking straight ahead as if she didn’t know him.
‘Good for her. Why the cloak and dagger?’
‘We fly out tomorrow night. We need to do more to provoke a result.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’ve been given the name of a lawyer. He’s involved in a case against Li. Compensation for some tenants kicked out of their homes for a property development. He might help us shake things up a bit.’
‘Relevance to our case?’
‘At face value, zero. But he might give us an insight into Li’s unofficial business methods. Some of those tenants were hospitalised and crippled for life. He may have even come across our Mr Yu Guangming.’
Even though it was only walking pace Cato was working up a sweat. ‘Who’s your source?’
‘That weedy Fed bloke who hangs out with Pavlou.’
Mystery Mike. ‘How did you get that info without it being tapped?’
‘We skyped but these days they can hack into that too. Look, even if they’re already onto us, we’re showing them we’re not stepping back. Fuck them.’
Fair enough, thought Cato. ‘So have you contacted this lawyer?’
‘Yep. Got supernerd to do it from over there to try and bypass the tapping.’
‘And?’
‘Midday today at the Big Bamboo Sports Bar in an area called Jing’an, not that far from here. Apparently they screen AFL, the beer’s nice and cold, and the Dockers are playing.’
‘Perfect. How do we lose our minders?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Lara. She leaned over and pressed a few buttons on his console. Cato was being forced to run.
The lawyer’s name was Richard Chan. His business card showed a head office in Hong Kong and, on the back, law qualifications obtained in England, Australia and Beijing. He was in his early thirties, medium height with a spreading waistline and a nervous countenance. He was casually dressed and spoke immaculate, precise English. Lara’s basic plan to shake off any tail had been for the three of them to head off in different directions using different modes of transport and then meet up again. Hardly Bourne Ultimatum stuff but, so far, it seemed to have worked. Cato had deliberated on whether or not he should keep Sharon Wang in the loop but decided against it. They were meeting a lawyer in an expat sports bar in broad daylight. What could possibly go wrong?
Lara outlined their interest in Thomas Li while Chan listened, nodding and sipping from a glass of white wine. Chan’s eyes widened at the description of the Tan killings. On the flat screens it was midway through the first quarter and the Dockers were two goals up against the Demons. As usual, Hayden Ballantyne was getting in the faces of the opposition. The bar was mainly haunted by pasty pudgy expats and, with the familiar VB and Guinness signs, it could have been suburban Perth. Except for a couple of local Chinese guys in a nearby alcove who stuck out like sore thumbs. One, the older, was wheelchair bound. The younger companion was scowling in Cato’s general direction. Both wore thin, cheap clothes that suggested they weren’t part of Shanghai’s booming middle class and probably couldn’t afford to be drinking at expat bar prices. They were sipping at Cokes and ignoring the footy – sacrilege. Lara wrapped up her preliminaries and sent James Blond off to the bar for some refills.
‘Does that sound like the Li you know? Maybe you could fill us in on your dealings with him.’
Chan put down his glass and looked like he was settling in for a long session. ‘Li Tonggui belongs to what we call “the bitter generation”, born in the nineteen fifties. At the time they should have been getting an education, they got instead the chaos and destruction of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. At the time they should have been embarking on a career and maybe starting a family, they were sent to the countryside for re-education. Ten, fifteen years later, at the time they might have been leaders in their chosen career, they were made redundant by Deng Xiaoping’s free market economic reforms. And now, at the time when maybe they should be looking forward to retirement, they have to use up all of their savings to help their children buy an over-priced apartment in the new capitalistic economy.’
Apart from the Cultural Revolution bit it sounded like the lot of any baby boomer, reflected Cato. ‘So?’ he said, hoping for a nice short answer this time.
‘So to survive those challenges intact is a major feat. To then flourish and prosper like Li has done, you need to be lucky, very smart, and a little bit ruthless.’
‘Tell me about the case you’re involved in now,’ said Lara.
Chan shrugged. ‘The same old story. An area of old laneway or longtang community housing demolished to make way for one of Li’s skyscrapers. Agreements were signed with the local municipal government to compensate and re-house the tenants. The agreements, of course, were worthless.’
‘This is an established part of Li’s modus operandi?’ said Lara.
‘He’s done this at least four other times, in China, to my knowledge.’ Richard said something in Mandarin to the two locals in the nearby recess. They abandoned their Cokes and the younger one wheeled the older over to join them. Chan did the introductions.
‘Zhou and Little Zhou.’ They all shook hands. Chan said something to them and they nodded, the older man clearing his throat and about to spit on the floor until Chan shook his head. ‘I’ve asked them to tell their story. I will translate.’
It was the son who spoke, evidently the father couldn’t.
‘We live in Songjiang district, further upriver: my father, my mother, me, my sister. My father was a sanitation worker, my mother cleaned the apartments of rich people, my sister and I went to school. Not rich but not so poor. We have a small house in a longtang, it is enough. We are honest people.’
A look passed between father and son.
‘The local government came to us late in March to say we have to move to make way for an extension to the new housing development they built last year. The existing one is still empty, why would they want to build more?’ Little Zhou’s scowl deepened. ‘We refused to move so they sent in the chengguan.’
‘Chengguan?’ said Cato.
‘Local government law enforcement officials,’ said Chan. ‘Often little more than hired thugs. Several of the resisting tenants were hospitalise
d. Zhou here was crippled for life. They snapped his spine. Their belongings were thrown on the street and the bulldozers moved in.’
‘No compensation?’ said Lara. ‘No alternative accommodation?’
Little Zhou snorted without waiting for the translation. Clearly he had some English. ‘They put us in an overcrowded shikumen block, anything up to ten people to a room, one filthy toilet for the whole floor, hick migrant workers from the provinces gambling, drinking, fighting, and pissing in the hallway.’ He nodded to his father while Chan finished interpreting. ‘Our place is on the third floor, stairs only, we have to carry him up and down like a sack of rice.’ He glared at the older man. ‘Only not as useful.’
The father’s eyes clouded over and he looked at the floor.
Chan chastised the younger man in their own language; probably for his public harshness to his father. The boy glowered.
‘Compensation?’ he pressed on. ‘The chengguan stole any cash that might have been coming. My sister was offered a job as a whore at the girlie bar around the corner from here.’ His head twisted in the general direction.
‘Did she take it?’ said James Blond.
Little Zhou’s face darkened even further. The kid was storing up some serious rage. He switched to English. ‘My sister is not your business.’
Lara slid the photo of Yu Guangming over to him. ‘Do you recognise this man? Is he one of those chengguan?’
He looked at the photo. ‘No, I don’t know him. Who is he?’
Lara started to tell him.
Chan intervened. ‘He seems to be a bigger fish than those street thugs. But I’ll ask around if you like. Can I keep this?’ ‘Sure,’ said Lara.
Chan dismissed Zhou and Little Zhou with a smile and a folding of cash into the boy’s palm. Suspicious and curious expat eyes followed them all the way off the premises.
‘Do you expect to win your case?’ said Cato.
‘I never expect anything. But if you kick up enough fuss sometimes a settlement can be worked out.’
‘If violence is part of Li’s repertoire doesn’t that worry you, personally?’
Chan nodded. ‘To be honest, yes. Civil lawyers and compensation cases of this sort are still relatively new to China. But with a surging economy there’s also a growth in predators and in victims. I live in hope that my high profile will protect me.’ He laughed nervously and raised a toast. ‘To justice.’
They clinked glasses. Quarter-time and the Dockers were still ahead.
The four left the Big Bamboo together, emerging into sweaty heat and glaring sunlight. Lara slipped on her shades and heard the incoming message tone on her phone. There was a chorus of beeps and buzzes; the others’ phones were doing the same. As she reached into her pocket, someone barrelled into her from the left side knocking her to the ground. Lara was aware of something being very, very wrong. They were all around her, stomping and kicking. She curled up as tight as she could, protecting her head with one hand, her stomach with another. There were weapons too, sticks or rods. She felt her knuckles, fingers, and arms turn to fire. She absorbed the pain and waited for them to stop, or for her to die. My baby, she thought, my poor baby.
A command was issued in Mandarin and the beating ceased. Lara opened her eyes. One of them was sticky with blood. A few metres away she could see James, wild-eyed, struggling, bloodied. More words, and the men kneeling on James held out his arm, flat against the ground. The man who was doing the talking walked over and brought a kitchen cleaver down on the outstretched hand. James screamed. The man picked up the severed fingers, walked over to Lara and knelt down. He wore a mask, only the eyes were visible. Grey-brown pupils in a jaundiced jelly. A strong cigarette smell like a mishap in a tyre factory. He scrubbed the fingers in her face then let them fall.
‘Fuck off home, lady,’ he said.
It was all over. They left.
Lara slowly rose to her feet. Her blood, mixed with that of James, ran down her face and down the front of her shirt. James was clutching his hand and whimpering. A scabby puppy scampered out of a laneway and disappeared with one of the severed fingers. Lara collected up the two that remained. It was the middle of the day. A crowd had gathered and everybody just stood there looking at them, like this happened all the time.
‘Ambulance. Hospital. Police. Somebody, please,’ said Lara.
A young man finished a call on his mobile. ‘They’re coming now.’
Lara hurt all over, but in particular in her stomach where some hard kicks had connected. She tried not to think the worst. Failed. She looked around. Richard Chan was lying still and lifeless with a large gash in his neck.
And Cato was missing.
Cato was lying on his side on the floor of a van that moved slowly through Shanghai traffic. His hands were cable-tied behind his back. There was a cloth bag over his head. It was stifling hot and he was choking on a foul mix of petrol fumes, old food spillages, and cigarette smoke. And something else; moisturising cream? His fellow passengers were using him as a footrest, chuckling and chattering in Chinese and occasionally giving him a kick to remind him of his predicament.
It wasn’t necessary.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A hand reached in and removed it. Switched it off. His wallet was next. Some rustling and more sniggers. It was thrown back at him. It felt empty. He’d received a few kicks and punches as they dragged him to the van but it seemed nothing compared to what he saw being done to the others before the bag slipped over his head. Were they already dead? What was in store for Cato?
The essence of tuishou is that you dissolve an oncoming force before striking a blow.
If this was Li’s doing, then he was making his point very well.
‘He’s not answering his phone,’ said Sharon Wang.
‘Probably in a meeting,’ said Lara, dully.
‘Look, how about we drop the tough girl act and work together on this. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
Driscoll, meanwhile, was gabbling away on his mobile in urgent Mandarin. He and Wang had been summoned by the Shanghai police first on the scene as soon as they’d worked out where the foreigners were from. ‘Ao-da-li-ya, ao-da-li-ya,’ Lara had heard. Even she could work that out. Now she was in a hospital room with her left arm in a sling. She had two suspected fractured knuckles, a dislocated pinkie, and severe defensive bruising and abrasions all over her body. An ultrasound had given the all-clear on the baby. Only then had she allowed herself to cry. James was being operated on to try to reattach the severed fingers of his left hand. The middle one was still missing, probably in the belly of that ratty little mongrel somewhere in Jing’an. James would be medivaced out to Perth once the operation was complete and he’d stabilised; sometime in the next forty-eight hours. The lawyer, Richard Chan, was dead.
‘Go through it again,’ said Wang. ‘What do you remember?’
Chaos, pain, blood and terror were the essence of her memories. But as she broke it down she also recalled the synchronised phone messages: coincidence or coordinated distraction to maximise the element of surprise? Two motorbikes, carrying two men each. A dark blue van with more men emerging. The one who did the talking was squat, wiry, scary. Masked, yet something familiar about the eyes. The strong cigarette smell. The cleaver. The fingers rubbing against her face, warm and wet. She fought the urge to gag.
Driscoll had finished his call. ‘So they definitely took him, he didn’t just leg it?’
‘Fuck off,’ said Lara, wondering who he’d been talking to.
‘Did you get anything useful out of Chan before they topped him?’ asked Driscoll.
‘Nothing concrete.’
‘Big surprise,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘He’s an ambulance-chaser, thrives on reasonable doubt and the balance of probabilities.’
‘He must have been on to something,’ said Lara. ‘It got him killed.’
‘Why do you think they’ve taken Kwong?’ Wang addressed her
question to Driscoll.
He shrugged. ‘Maybe they want to do him slowly. Maybe they think he’s worth something.’
‘Money?’ said Wang.
‘Or influence.’
‘So what do we do now?’ said Lara to Driscoll. ‘And who were you talking to?’
‘Classified,’ he smiled. ‘We’ve got the locals interviewing witnesses and chasing down the bikes and van. We’ve got a GSM trace on Kwong’s phone in case it gets switched on again.’
Wang bit her lower lip and summoned Driscoll out of the room for a private chat. They switched to Mandarin but Lara clearly heard the sounds of Driscoll giving her a bollocking. What was that about? They returned, Wang flushed, Driscoll back on his mobile.
‘What’s the score?’ said Lara.
Wang shook her head sadly. ‘God knows.’
The van stopped. Cato was dragged out, still hooded, and carried somewhere. There was a tang of motor oil. He was dumped on a hard, cold floor that felt grimy but, after the choking claustrophobia of the van, it was something of a relief. Then someone hit him on the side of the head. More blows followed, some with weapons, but mainly with feet, kicking and stomping. He tried to curl up into a ball. The pain was relentless, its application systematic. And that smell again – moisturising cream.
Lara was left alone in her hospital room to reflect upon the day and on how much of it had been her doing. Chan dead, James horribly maimed, and Cato missing. All down to her wanting to rattle Li’s cage and get a result. Some result. Guards were stationed at her door but she had the impression that nobody was really expecting any follow up. The message had already been well and truly delivered. How close had she come to losing her baby and for what?
She called John and told him what had happened.
‘Get the hell out of there. Next flight. Please.’
‘I can’t. Cato’s missing. I’ve got to find him.’
‘Can’t you leave it to the AFP, the embassy guy, the locals?’
‘Would you?’
Of course he wouldn’t, and neither would she. They both knew it.
