by Andy Oakes
They will show their card. They will purchase what you cannot. Number 83, Chao Yang Men Street. Western videos, books, and magazines. And for those in very special favour, those whose yuan is plentiful and whose power throws long shadows, western pornography.
They will show their card. They will purchase what you cannot. The Friendship Stores. Perfumes, luxury items, designer clothing, soft leather footwear, jewellery.
They will have their hair cut in salons that you cannot enter. The Peking Hotel. See their Hong-qis pulling up outside the hotel with its grey-uniformed guards? On the mezzanine floor, the barbers, the women’s hairdressers, full of their milky meat-fed faces. Their bloated jowls.
They will educate their children in countries that you see the silver winged planes flying to in reflection, in the waters of your paddy fields. America, Britain, Switzerland. Special places held for them on their return, at Fudan University, Beijing University. Special positions held for them within the Party structure. Within the People’s Liberation Army. Dynasties of the children, of the fathers, of the grandfathers.
Even in death, a card to be shown. In Babaoshan Cemetery, where many of the People’s Republic’s political leaders are buried, room is at a premium. Many die, the cemetery small. It is not unusual to see mourners fighting for a space for their newly departed loved ones, but if you have a card to show, there are special Number 1 vaults that are reserved for the highest of cadre only. Vaults that are well apart from those of lower ranks. In these vaults their cremated remains can rest forever. If you are not a high cadre, after five years your loved one’s ashes must be removed.
And in the neon bright clubs in Dainty Delicacies Street that the cadre and their princeling sons play in, opium served in silver pipes. A bottle of wine for $200. Whisky for $500. A private room for $1,000. And a whore to comfort them for beween $1,000 to $15,000, depending on what they wish her to do.
Such is the bitterness of their sea.
Chapter 16
THE MING REN, ‘FAMOUS PEOPLE’ CLUB, 240 BEIJINGLU
“Is this a good fucking idea, Boss?”
Late. 2 a.m. Moving up the stairs. Street-night colours swapped for the hues that secret night places have. Sharp, rich colours, frosting yuan grabbing hands. Gilding dollar stuffed wallets.
Yaobang, at the top of the stairs, feeling out of place. A queue with suits, sharply-creased, hand-stitched. The Senior Investigator, documents of authority already in hand, roughly pushing forward to the queue’s head. Thin, worn linen rubbing past the finest cotton. Polyester bruising against the most expensive silk.
A whisper answering the Big Man’s question.
“In reviling, it is not necessary to prepare a preliminary draft.”
Treading on pristine polished shoes. Yaobang, a string of apologies as his boss passed roughly through, pressing toward a heavy door. A hostess standing at a desk. Never had he seen a more beautiful woman, but something in the back of her matt gaze, dead. Either side of her, two guards wearing pith helmets with feathers in the khaki bands, already eyeing him. Already pumping themselves up like tractor tyres.
The Senior Investigator turning, a wink to the Big Man, words few, but understood.
“Do not worry, Deputy, you will live to eat once more. We are just the weasels coming to say happy New Year to the chickens.”
Piao’s hand already in the faces of the guards. Red star in fragmented reflection across heavy brows. His gaze turning to meet theirs.
“I am Senior Investigator Sun Piao of the PSB Homicide Squad. I know that I am many months late, but please tell your manager that I would like to wish him a very happy New Year.”
*
The manager immaculately attired, wearing a suit that could have purchased a second-hand Shanghai Sedan and with shoes whose cost could have fed a family for six months. But a snake in a lion’s skin. Nothing that was noble or attractive about him; only things of the gutter. From his acid breath to the sickly candied taint of his sweat. Hands, fingers, that had never touched a woman in any other way than violently or oppressively sexual. Lips that had never spoken a word with soft edges and that had never kissed without a cost being attached.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“PSB …”
And against his shiny smooth cheek.
“Vice Squad.”
Laughing.
“Vice? The PSB don’t have a fucking Vice Squad.”
Yaobang, against his other cheek.
“They fucking do now.”
Smiling, the manager.
“You can’t just walk in here. Fucking PSB walking in here. I don’t care who you fucking are. Senior Investigators, fucking chiefs. I don’t fucking care. Unless the whores in the back are your fucking sisters.”
A mouth as foul as a sewer, the manager. Anger rising within Piao, a bitter saline wave. Already feeling a personal hatred for him.
Preened, perfumed high cadre in conspiratorial groups. The manager watching as they moved through plush, padded doors and into private rooms. A splinter of gold and red light … a teasing female laugh as the door closed. Other silk-suited high cadre, hiding their faces with soft, white palms, hurriedly walking out of the club, ignoring the hostesses’ polite goodnights.
The manager confronting Piao.
“You’re ruining my fucking business. My clientele, they do not expect such fucking treatment. They were given fucking assurances.”
Turning to Yaobang.
“What do you fucking pigs earn a month. 200? 300?”
Laughing. Gold-capped teeth. Grey-coated tongue.
“You know what it costs to come in here? What a fucking door pass costs? Of course you don’t know, because you’ve got shit between your ears. It costs between 5,000 and 10,000, depending on how good your guan-xi is. And your guan-xi wouldn’t get you into our fucking toilet. Now fuck off.”
His hand on Yaobang’s chest.
“Go. Go now or I’ll call your danwei chairman. He can fucking afford 5,000 for a door pass. He will not appreciate his favourite club being ruined by interfering flat-footed arseholes like you.”
A nod to the guards. Moving forward, shadows chasing in front of them. The Big Man pushing the manager away and producing his pistol. Sharp into the manager’s ribcage. Doubling over, like a kick to a sack full of rotten apples.
“No one pushes a serving officer in the Public Security Bureau. Have I made myself fucking clear?”
An ingratiating smile, but laced with fear. The manager pulling in a breath, sharply painful.
“Comrade Officer, come, come. We’re all on the same side.”
Piao into his ear.
“No, Comrade Manager, you have been mis-informed. I am not on your side, or anyone’s side like you. Now let us keep everything nice and normal. Tell your men to back off, or my Deputy will spread you over the expensive wallpaper of your club.”
Nodding towards the Big Man.
“You must understand that I cannot guarantee my Deputy’s behaviour when someone like you pushes him. He is an officer who is very particular about who he likes touching him.”
“What do you fucking PSB want? What do you pigs fucking want here?”
“A rare commodity. Information.”
“I don’t do information.”
“Yes, Comrade Manager. Yes, you do provide information.”
A nod. The Big Man’s stubby thumb releasing the safety.
“Now order them back,” pointing at the guards.
“Go back …”
“Go fucking back. It’s okay. Nothing I can’t fucking handle. Go back to your fucking work. Back to work. What do you think I’m fucking paying you for, you children of whores.”
The guards’ shadows receding as they moved back to the main door. Into the manager’s ear, each word with the nudge of steel grating against rib.
“Where were they fucking born, in a barn? Tell them to close the door.”
“You, you shitheads. Close the fucking door.”
“Thank you, Comrade. Very co-operative. That is what we need in the situation that I wish to talk to you about. Co-operation and team work.”
“Fuck off, whore for a mother. I co-operate with no one.”
A long-legged, red gash-lipped hostess moving from one of the private rooms with a small tray of foreign cigarettes, brightly-packaged condoms, pastel-shaded pills. Piao’s mouth filled with an imagined sugar-candied sweetness. His tongue clawed by bitter medication. The door slow to close. Glimpses of two lithe bodies straddling septuagenarian cocks.
The manager, his confidence returned, winking at the Big Man.
“You like, yes? Of course you like.”
Laughing.
“Sign over your year’s fucking wages and I’ll get one of them to suck you off. Or perhaps you prefer something a little more, how shall I say … exotic. Yes, exotic. Perhaps they fuck you? Now there’s a fantasy to play with. Or maybe a boy for you, officer? A tight-arsed little boy.”
Laughing, the inside of his mouth as red as mashed plums.
“It can be arranged.”
The hostess walking to a door beside a sheet-copper shod bar. Every soft step, Yaobang’s eyes longingly following the slit of her dress, the splinter of her pale shapely leg. A barman, tuxedo, bow tie, scuffed shoes, nodding to her as she pushed the door open. Kitchen clatter and noise, the door swinging closed. Piao walking toward the bar through the same door.
“This way.”
Yaobang, an angry prod of pistol.
“Sure, Boss. Whatever you say.”
The manager staggering, hauled forward. Following the hostess’s perfume to the bar, through the door and into a kitchen. Two chefs loading delicacies onto silver trays. Feilong, hazel hen, fed on ginseng seed. Served in the most delicate of china bowls. Hundred-year-old eggs, duck’s eggs preserved in clay, straw, and quicklime. The egg-white and yolk blending, taking on the appearance of black watered silk. Thousand year old eggs, preserved and cooked in a mixture of salt, alcohol, pimento paste.
At a sink a kitchen assistant washing crystal glasses, white ice-snap china plates. Another assistant, shoulder to shoulder, pushing vegetable peelings down a waste disposal unit with a chewed-up stick. Thick stalks, rough peel, husks, shells, a rattling of whirring blades … to watery paste.
A door to the stinking back long open. City smells falling in: the Yellow Dragon’s breath, the cars’ cough, the dogs’ cocked-legged curtsy and beside it a hostess and two others slumped against the alley’s rough brickwork. Smoke slowly escaping from thick crimson lips and snaking over eyes that had seen too much for any soul to remain un-bruised.
“Tell them to take a fucking break.”
“They have jobs to do. Clients to serve.”
“Tell them or I’ll shoot your fucking balls off.”
The manager’s gaze meeting Piao’s.
“There are many liu-mang in our city who have a permanent limp due to my Deputy’s trigger happy finger. I suggest you do as he asks.”
Reading the truth in Piao’s eyes.
“Take a break. Take a fucking break.”
Chefs, assistants, hostesses, blank eyes, slow paces out to the cold night and the long.
“Out, out. Are you fucking deaf?”
Faster paces, shrugged shoulders, whispered conversations. The Senior Investigator closing and bolting the door. Turning to the manager.
“Thank you, Comrade. Our conversation, and what you will need to say to us, it is best not heard by others. Loose tongues can lead to shallow graves.”
“I have nothing to say to you or your fucking dog. I have friends who are provincial leaders. Clients who are government ministers, Politburo members. I have nothing to fear from whore’s children. One call from me and your fucking throats will be slit.”
Moving toward the manager, the Big Man’s shadow falling across him.
“Now concentrate, because you’re going to answer all of our fucking questions.”
“Fuck off you PSB piece of shit. I’ve nothing to say.”
Piao wedging himself in between the two of them.
“Over there. Take him over there.”
Pointing to the large sink filled with vegetable stalks and amputated leaves. Yaobang’s arms embracing the manager, hauling him across the kitchen. Pinning him in place, tight against the sink. Across his black suit jacket smears of saffron sauce.
“Down there.”
Piao’s nod to the centre of the discoloured sink. A black hole stained with vegetable matter. The waste disposal unit.
“Sure, Boss. I get the point.”
Grabbing the manager’s arm in the vice of his hands. Forcing it into the rubber-sheathed mouth of the hole. A stink of rotting things rising up from the sewers.
“Bastards, bastards. What are you fucking doing? You’re mad. I don’t even fucking know you.”
Wedging it firmly in place. Cufflink torn free. Material, silkily expensive, ripping.
“I’ll pay you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That is what it is always about with you PSB. Yuan. Or dollars. Yes?
“Information. That is the only currency that will save your fingers.”
Piao’s thumb orbiting the waste disposal unit’s sunken rubber button.
“We will start with the small things, Comrade Manager, perhaps inconsequential to you but pieces in a jigsaw to me. This place, this Ming Ren Club, what is it?”
Looking up, the manager, laughing.
“Are you fucking serious? And you call yourself Vice Squad? A whorehouse, idiot policeman, that’s what this is. The best, the most select whores in the city. We will need to educate you, Vice Squad.”
“So you admit to breaking the law by adhering to the ‘olds’?”
“The ‘olds’? Breaking the law? Fuck you, you motherless bastard. Go into our private rooms. A high ranking member of the local Party committee being buggered in room five. A judge in room three fucking a ten-year-old girl. A visiting Chief of the Public Security Bureau in our jacuzzi, being pissed on by two whores.”
Laughing.
“Let me fucking educate you two Vice Squad Officers. Do you know who owns this club and half a dozen others? The PSB in partnership with a consortium from Hong Kong. The fucking PSB. The law, this is who gives us permission to break the law.”
Laughing again with teeth of gold.
“Big business. They own half the clubs, half the whorehouses in the city. PLA own the rest, and all controlled by the senior officers of the Shanghai Kan Shou Jingbei Si Ling Bu.”
Piao shaking his head.
“The Guard Army of Shanghai Garrison, they own this city, they own the vice, or most of it. They fucking own you. You really didn’t know, did you?”
Avoiding his mocking gaze, the Senior Investigator.
“So what are you going to do now, screw with a Senior Colonel in the PLA? Walk into his headquarters and fucking arrest them? They are beyond you, policeman. Beyond everyone.”
“What other business interests do the PLA have?”
“What fucking businesses don’t they have an interest in. The PSB are amateurs compared to the PLA. They have big operations. Joint ventures with triads, the Sun Yee On, Taiwan’s Four Seas and the Bamboo Gang. The businessmen put up the fucking capital and the PLA runs the businesses and the clubs.”
Laughing.
“Fuck, I should be paid for this educational seminar. All the clubs along the Yanan Road, all the way to Hongqiao Airport, they’re all PLA as well as around the Shangri-La Hotel on the Beijing Road and on the Nanjing Road near the People’s Park. All the clubs in the Siping Road in Hongkou, all fucking PLA. Do you know what their operations are worth? 30 billion fucking dollars a year.”
Laughing, but his eyes never leaving Piao’s orbiting thumb around the rubber button of the waste disposal.
“And they have the blessing of our dear leaders in Beijing. Directives that govern
ment agencies should become more financially self-sufficient. They’ve certainly fucking done that. But not many at the highest levels of government and the Party know just exactly how they’ve done it.”
“You had a girl who worked here. A very beautiful girl, until she was carved up with a cut-throat razor …”
The manager’s attitude changing; the dark side of the moon. Struggling to pull his hand from the waste disposal’s black mouth, the Big Man holding him tighter.
“I see that you recognise who it is that I talk about. Tell me about her?”
Silence. Just distant laughter from a private room.
“Lan Li. Tell me about her?”
“I don’t know her. Fuck off you abortions of a whore.”
“Lan Li, she worked here. Tell me about her?”
“Fuck off you dogs, go back to your kennels. I don’t know the whore.”
A stab at the button, as a knife into a fat-bellied pig to disembowel it. Motor, blades, a grinding noise, laced into it, a guttural scream. The kind that is at home in a farmyard, or an abattoir.
“I am sorry, Comrade Manager. I did not notice that your hand was in the waste disposal unit when I turned it on.”
“And I’m a witness, Boss. You were only trying to help them with a few fucking chores around the kitchen, and the idiot starts pushing cabbage leaves down there with his fingers.”
Blubbering, the manager.
“Terrible the accidents that happen in the fucking kitchen But nothing that a few stitches and bandages won’t sort out. Not like the girl, eh Boss?”
Words, each edged in anger’s fine serrated teeth.
“Now, tell me of Lan Li, Comrade Manager.”
“Fuck off.”
A nod to Yaobang.
“Okay, okay. A fucking whore we used. Very good. Our fucking best…”
Pulling the paper from his pocket, the Senior Investigator. Placing it on the edge of the sink. Stars of spittle and blood. Diluted, but blooming through the cheap paper. Black biroed names. Three names, three dead girls.
