“So you’re saying that maybe whoever owns the YSP sorghum-hyphen-Zhucheng dog food building has ties to all sorts of industries?”
“Exactly. And his angle is that he takes kickbacks from them for letting them use his companies’ names so that they can avoid high U.S. tariffs. You could say he actually specializes in exporting goods that are subject to U.S. antidumping investigations. A secret cartel specializing in getting around U.S. trade law. Maybe Powell and Keen figured or ferreted the scheme out. Maybe their discovery brought down someone’s—an invisible someone’s—murderous wrath.”
“Unless, of course, they were killed by Wesley, in a cuckold’s jealous rage,” Zhang said.
“Or were arrested and so forth because of … .” Severin said, pantomiming using a submarine periscope again.
“Or were abducted at random and killed for the value of their passports and credit cards.”
“Or were able to stow away to Bali, undetected, to begin new lives as beach bums.”
“Or to be debriefed by their—”
Severin cut him off with a zip-your-mouth gesture, then pointed to the ceiling to remind Zhang of the possibility that they were being listened to.
“But I really don’t think they’re in Bali,” Severin continued. “And the only possibility offering leads to pursue is my new trade law cartel theory.”
“Leads? What leads?”
“In the case record documents, I found the address for YSP’s freight forwarder, or shipping agent, or whatever such things are called here. And guess what? They’re located here in Qingdao.”
“A shipping agent wouldn’t be related to YSP, would it?”
“We shall see. I have a funny gut feeling, and a half-baked plan to stake out their offices.”
“Looking for what?”
“I’m not sure. But whatever it is, I think we’ll know it when we see it.”
THIRTY
For the next several days, as he waited for Zhang to be released from the hospital, Severin accomplished very little. Using nothing more than hand gestures, head nods, and the words yes and no, he was able to negotiate the purchase of a bicycle from a street vendor for the equivalent of roughly $20. Following the directions of the hotel concierge, he used the bike to make his way to the address for the office of Qingdao Ocean One Logistics Company Limited—YSP’s alleged shipping agent. Riding with one arm in a cast took some getting used to, and the bike turned out to be totally unnecessary as the office was barely a mile and a half from the Shangri-La Hotel. Regardless, Severin used the bike to make a few passes by the office to take a good look at it. He contemplated staking it out, but decided it would be too risky given that he’d stick out like a sore Caucasian thumb. So he spent a couple of days just riding his bike around the city. It was a fascinating and surprisingly beautiful place, with an old city center comprised of colonial-era German designed buildings and houses that looked like they belonged in an ancient Hanseatic seaport like Bremen or Hamburg. As in Shanghai, the old part of the city was surrounded by gleaming new skyscrapers. The whole downtown area was out on a narrow, rocky peninsula—flanked with wide beaches of golden sand—jutting out into the Yellow Sea. The geography very much reminded Severin of Spain’s Costa Brava region, between Barcelona and the French border. He walked the beaches, bought two new pairs of compact binoculars as he wandered the extraordinary markets, and toured the excellent Qingdao Brewery
THIRTY-ONE
At last, the physicians released Zhang with a giant bottle of prescription pain killers that he kept hidden from Severin. He moved into the Shangri-La Hotel, one floor down from Severin’s room. Zhang had a barber shave his head to even out the job the hospital did in prepping him for the surgery that never happened, hoping to make himself less conspicuous and hideous—though he still bore large bruises. Then he called the hotel in Yinzhen, leaving a message to tell their poor Shanghai taxi driver where he could find his borrowed/stolen cab—if he hadn’t already done so. Aside from that, they took another 72 hours to let Zhang rest and get used to being back on his feet before resuming the chase. When they finally did, they hired another taxi for full-time transportation, then took up station on the roadside across and half a block up the street from the office of Qingdao Ocean One Logistics, just off Laiyang Road. From where they sat with their new binoculars, they could see out over picturesque Huiquan Bay. Two grand sailboats traversed its blue-brown waters. Severin imagined the golden sand beach along the bay would be packed with people come summer. But on this cool winter day, with temperatures barely touching 40 degrees Fahrenheit, it was deserted.
“At least this time we have a view for our stakeout,” Zhang said.
“At least this time we don’t have diarrhea.”
“Amen.”
“You know, depending on how our pursuit shakes out, you may need to follow someone on foot. I’d do it, except that I’d be hard to miss.”
“Because you’re a pale, hairy, round-eye Western barbarian?”
“Are you up to it?”
“I think so. I still feel a little fuzzy. But I think so. Though I had better get a hat to hide the giant bruise on my head, or I’ll stick out like the freak that I am.”
“We’ll get you several hats.”
*****
After they’d been sitting in the taxi watching the office of Qingdao Ocean One Logistics for three hours, their driver began to fidget.
“I don’t know how long this guy is going to last,” Severin said.
“Looks like he has restless leg syndrome”
“My parents called it shaky leg. Are you absolutely sure he’s against just letting us borrow the cab?”
“He was adamant. We can try with a different cabbie tomorrow. Hey—someone just came out of the office.”
“Finally.”
“See that guy with the duffel bag?”
“I see him. Tell the driver to follow at a discreet distance.”
They crawled along, watching the man make his way down the side street, turn left on Laiyang Road, and walk another few hundred feet to a bus stop. After a couple minutes, a half-empty bus picked the man up and headed north, inland. It being rush hour, traffic was terrible. It took them more than an hour to travel seven miles to the stop where their quarry got off the bus, in the Licang District. From there, it looked as though the man was headed to a high-rise apartment building—one of several identical buildings lining both sides of the street. At this point, Zhang jumped out of the taxi to follow on foot, trailing the man right through the front door of the building. A few minutes later, he was back in the cab.
“He lives there. He got his mail, read it in the lobby, then took an elevator to the fifth floor.”
“Then he’s not who we’re looking for,” Severin said.
“Why not?”
“This is a regular building in a regular working-class neighborhood, and he rode the bus home to it. We’re looking for the el jefe. At the very least, the el jefe is probably going to have fancy digs and drive a Mercedes.”
“Or a Buick.”
“A Buick?”
“Buick is a big status symbol here.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You don’t even want to ask him any questions?”
“And have him turn around and warn the el jefe? No.”
“You know, when you say ‘the el jefe,’ the the is redundant.”
“Huh?”
“The article ‘el’ is masculine Spanish for ‘the.’ So when you say ‘the el jefe,’ you’re saying ‘the the boss.’”
“Don’t—see, this is exactly why … .” Severin shook his head.
“I just thought you wouldn’t want to keep sounding like an idiot.”
“You live in your parents’ basement.”
“Yeah. That’s mature.”
*****
The next day, they set off early to find hats for Zhang, following the concierge’s directions to a large open-air market—a maze of stalls offering everyth
ing from plastic buckets to tea to tires to medicines. In a section offering food, including an incredible variety of fresh produce, they saw cages containing several varieties of live animals that neither of them could identify. There was even a van that held several goats with a handler who was milking directly into milk jugs for a line of eager customers.
“I wonder if that’s a civet,” Zhang said, pointing to a cage that held a frightened animal that looked like a cross between a raccoon and a weasel or cat.
“What’s a civet?”
“Some sort of nocturnal mammal. Remember the SARS outbreak? Some scientists thought the SARS virus crossed over to humans from civets.” Zhang shook his head. “You know, over here, some people even thought SARS was created by the CIA, and that it was specifically engineered to infect only Chinese.”
“Good lord. I guess there are paranoid kooks in every corner of the world. Not just in Uganda and the Idaho Panhandle.”
*****
They found Zhang three nondescript baseball-style caps—one tan, one dark green, one navy blue. Then they got hold of another cab—this time successfully talking the cab driver into just giving them his taxi by promising him advance payments of $100 a day—and resumed their stakeout down at the offices of Qingdao Ocean One Logistics. But just over five hours later, they were foiled again, having followed—through more terrible rush hour traffic—another regular worker in his regular clothes and regular car to his regular apartment in the regular working-class neighborhood of Yingzi.
“Why did we bother following this guy across town?” Zhang asked.
“It’s always possible the el jef—pardon me, el jefe, could wear humble clothes. Look at Bill Gates.”
*****
A few hours into their third day staking out Qingdao Ocean One Logistics, a van pulled up in front of the building, the driver remaining within with the engine running. After a couple of minutes, a rotund man exited the office building and turned toward the van. His hair was styled, and he wore a dark blue Western-style business suit as well as a watch that was big enough for Zhang and Severin to see without the use of their binoculars. The van pulled away as soon as the man shut the passenger side door.
“That’s him,” Severin said.
“You sound so sure.”
“He’s overweight. Nobody here is overweight. Follow him.”
A low layer of iron gray overcast darkened the sky from horizon to horizon. It was so low that the tops of some of the taller buildings were hidden in cloud as they followed the van into the heart of the city. It made several stops along the way. At each, both the driver and el jefe got out and went in the back doors of what turned out to be various import-export offices, each, according to the names on their respective office front signs, dealing in different products. Frozen seafood, chemicals, molded plastics, paint. Whenever the van stopped, Severin and Zhang also stopped—far enough away that they wouldn’t be seen—and surveilled. El jefe and his driver never stayed at any one stop for more than five or ten minutes.
At the fourth such stop, they pulled to the side of the street opposite an alley the van had driven down. Once again, they watched through their binoculars.
“What do you think they’re up to?” Zhang asked.
“Looks like collections.”
“Like a Mafia protection racket type of thing?”
“Some sort of extortion, I would guess. Or maybe they’re collecting kickback payments for the use of el jefe’s tariff evasion schemes.”
As Severin said this, el jefe and his driver emerged from the back door of a building and into the alley. But this time they were pulling someone with them. The driver held a small and terrified looking old man by his arms from behind as el jefe went to the van and came back with a pair of bolt cutters. The driver, still holding the little old man, forced one of the old man’s arms out, then gripped one of his fingers and held it firm and extended. El Jefe aligned the bolt cutter blades so that if he closed the metal arms, it would clip the old man’s finger off like a little hotdog.
“Oh, shit,” Zhang said. “Look.”
“Like I was saying.”
There seemed to be a discussion underway. The old man, his face red, kept nodding in agreement with whatever el jefe was saying or demanding. Then they let the old man and his intact finger go and got back in the van. Message delivered.
Zhang and Severin followed the van a couple more miles, back out onto roads that more or less followed the contours of the coastline, past the old German section of the city, and around Qingdao Bay. Finally, it turned left off of the main road onto a street dead-ending at the shore. The van drove around the back of a brand new skyscraper of white masonry and blue glass, then pulled into a parking space adjacent to the main door. Zhang and Severin pulled to the curb a fair distance away, and watched as el jefe and the driver disappeared into the building.
“Should I follow them?” Zhang asked.
“That looks like the type of building that would have a security desk just inside the door.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“The parking lot is full, all except for the spot that was waiting for them right next to the main door. What does that tell us, Grasshopper?”
“That el jefe is the man.”
“There’s a sign on a post at the head of the parking spot the van pulled into.”
“Is there?”
“Want to go see what it says?”
“Be right back.”
When Zhang returned, he was smiling.
“What’s the verdict?”
“It says ‘reserved for deputy commissioner of customs.’”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
*****
It was nearly three hours before the pair re-emerged from the building and got back in the van. When they did, Zhang had to be hailed from behind the dumpster where he was urinating to scramble back into the taxi while trying to zip his pants. They followed the van less than a mile before it turned up a quiet residential street lined with brand new homes that each had to have been at least 4,000 square feet. The van pulled into the driveway, but nobody got out. Severin and Zhang waited on the curb at the end of the block.
“Why aren’t they getting out?” Zhang asked.
“How should I know?”
“Do you think they spotted us? Do you think a bunch of goons are on their way here to beat our asses again?”
“It’s possible. We won’t loiter long.”
They both switched back and forth between observing the van and examining the house.
“Wallace, take a look in the lower right window of the house. See the fancy-schmancy lighted floating wall shelves. Are those bottles of cognac?”
Zhang turned his attention to the set of three lit, wall-mounted glass shelves with a dozen or so bottles of cognac on display. The amber spirit in each bottle glowed warmly under the soft, focused beam of a shelf light. “Yeah. Real cognac—not that Georgian fire water we had in Yinzhen. XO grade cognacs from several of the best labels. Hennessy, Louis Royer, Courvoisier, Martell, Otard. Damn—there’s even a bottle of Rémy Martin Louis XIII. That’s at least $2,000 a bottle.”
“El jefe is living a bit above his pay grade, isn’t he?” Severin said.
“For a humble customs official, a government employee, I should say so.”
“I certainly don’t remember drinking a whole lot of high-dollar cognac when I worked for the government. Unless it was at one of those notorious big law firm Christmas parties where they try to buy influence with fake good-fellowship and fancy snacks.”
“I think we should leave,” Zhang said.
“Look.”
“El jefe emerged from the van and went into what was, presumably, his house.
“I think we’re cool,” Severin said. “They were just finishing up a conversation or something.”
The van backed down the driveway, reversed direction, and came rolling down the street toward them. Severin and Zhang crouched down. As th
e van passed them, Severin snuck a look at the driver. He was now wearing a white leather jacket.
“I’ll be damned a second time in one day.”
“What?”
“That was the van driver from Yinzhen. The dude we were following when we got waylaid.”
“Let’s hope he didn’t see us.”
“He didn’t. Let’s see if we can’t follow that son of a bitch.”
They did, keeping a much healthier distance than they did when they were spotted, trapped, and pulverized back in Yinzhen. They tracked the van east, out of downtown, to the Laoshan District. It was an easy task, as the van stayed on the same main road for most of the way. The journey terminated at a luxury mid-rise apartment building that appeared to have an unobstructed view of Fushan Bay, and fronted, to Severin’s considerable surprise, a first-class golf course. The building was part of a complex, access to which was controlled by an actively guarded gate. They pulled off the main road and watched as the van disappeared into the underground parking garage of one of the buildings.
“Once again,” Severin said, “I’m thinking this guy is maybe, just maybe living above his pay grade.”
“Assuming he’s merely the company van driver.”
“I just wonder about that.”
“Do you want me to try to follow him in on foot? I don’t think he saw my face in Yinzhen.”
“I think we’ll be able to see where he goes from here.”
They watched the building through their binoculars, scanning from window to window.
“There he is,” Zhang said. “Third floor. Second window from the left.”
He had entered a corner apartment. Severin could also see a woman—probably his wife—in the kitchen cooking dinner, as well as a young boy watching television in an adjoining room.
“A stand up family man,” Zhang said. “Who’d have guessed?”
“This is a welcome discovery.”
“Why?”
“I don’t see a family. What I see is potential leverage. Let’s go back to the hotel and formulate a new plan.”
Chasing the Monkey King Page 26
