The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

by David Rotenberg

  It was the final mad act of her mad life. It scared Robert in many ways. Not the least was an intense, debilitating fear of fire – of any sort.

  Robert looked back at the airplane windowpane. Only one word remained, fading quickly in the mist: Hell.

  “Hell – Becaus – what’s the difference,” he thought.

  He put the new CD he’d bought at the airport into his player and punched play.

  “I’m travelling in some vehicle,

  I’m sitting in some café.”

  Joni sang in his ear. He reached for the CD jacket and read the title of the piece: “Hejira” – the journey. He pressed replay.

  “I’m travelling in some vehicle,

  I’m sitting in some café.”

  “Some vehicle, some café, with you on that, Joni,” he thought. She’d always been like a guide. Even as a teenager she’d shown him the way. But he was careful where she led. Loneliness was a seductive but dangerous atoll.

  Robert didn’t sleep on the plane or watch the endless movies that first flight to Hong Kong. He used the sixteen hours to consider what he wanted to do with what was left of his life. He discarded the immediate response – to find a new lover – and decided that he needed a new direction. A real purpose. Then he thought of his father’s words about Silas Darfun and knew beyond any doubt what that real purpose had to be.

  In Hong Kong he’d been met at the airport by a lot of flash and glitter. But he was used to that as the point man in the law firm’s film deals in Hollywood and Europe. Then a silk-clad woman in her late thirties hopped into the back of the limo and sat beside him. Her exquisite features were set off by delicate makeup that highlighted her cheekbones and her amazing eyes. “If this is a Hong Kong hooker, this is not good,” he thought. Then she spoke. She was no hooker – it was worse. She was a producer.

  He played an old game he’d perfected in law school. He watched her beautiful lips move as they formed the words but he totally ignored the sounds themselves. It allowed him to appear to be listening but not take in a single word. At the hotel he hopped out and slammed the door behind him before she could follow him. She was just a producer but he was the lawyer – he represented the money. “In this game, sweetie, my one-eyed Johnny beats your three tens.”

  The days in Hong Kong had been predictable in content if not style. The movie business was basically practised the same all over the world. But as he was packing up to leave, the lady producer from the first day arrived unannounced at his hotel room door.

  She was no longer wearing silk. Now she was all business – black suit, black sheer hose, black pumps with just a little more heel than usual. She carried an unfashionably large briefcase.

  “Your dealings were fruitful, I hope,” she said and flashed him a smile.

  He nodded.

  “Good. You see the potential benefits in doing business in the Middle Kingdom?”

  He nodded again.

  “Good. My people . . .”

  “Your people?” Robert stopped her.

  “My people in Shanghai – those for whom I speak . . . would like you to represent their interests in further projects.”

  Robert didn’t nod this time. He just canted his head a little to one side and waited.

  She walked into the bedroom, put the briefcase on the bed, and snapped open the latches. Robert stepped forward to get a peek at the contents, but she angled it away from him. Then she smiled. “My associates and I are prepared to reward you handsomely for representing our interests.” Before he could respond she added, “I see you are listening to my words this time, not just watching my lips move, Mr. Cowens. I went to law school, too.” She turned the briefcase toward Robert.

  Until that very moment Robert had never seen a Buddhist temple scroll. He assumed they were valuable. He also assumed that they were not strictly legal to export.

  “And these would be?” he prompted.

  “From the Taklamakan Desert. Antiquities worth a fortune to collectors in the West.”

  Robert forced a smile to his face. “And how would these things get to the West?”

  She met his smile with one that was far warmer and inviting than his own. “I would do that for you . . . this time. All you do is find us the appropriate discreet lawyers that such transactions would need. After, I meet you in New York and show you how good ‘good’ can get.” She moved her lips but made no sounds.

  Here was the possibility of an insulated source of cash – the special income – he’d need if he really wanted to unearth the secrets of one Silas Darfun. This insulated income could get him around the currency restrictions both coming and going from the People’s Republic of China. Yes, this ‘antiquing’ – as he thought of it – was just the kind of business he’d need. As the card players in his father’s club would have called it – a real cash business.

  “So?” she asked.

  “When do I start?”

  That had been four years ago. And finally after earning tens of thousands of dollars “antiquing,” and spending every cent of it on bribes, he felt he was closing in on Silas Darfun and his revenge.

  The thud of the rain on his umbrella brought him back to the present.

  Robert stretched, pulling the long tails of his shirt out of his pants. He sighed – shirts used to stay in his pants. Now they popped out when he stretched. Forty-four years will do that.

  He turned to his Shanghanese translator, a roundfaced pixie of a woman with bad teeth, a charming smile, and impeccable English. She stood perfectly still, and entirely dry, beneath a small black parasol.

  “Mr. Cowens?” she asked.

  Not for the first time Robert was pleased that she was plain-looking. His weakness for attractive Asian women had ended his first marriage and derailed any plans for a second. But unlike Silas Darfun, Robert never married his Asian mistresses – and, of course, he had no children with them – or anyone else.

  “Mr. Cowens?”

  He held a finger to his lips. She bowed her head slightly and waited. Asmile crossed his face. His eyes twinkled. “Tell these gentlemen that their product is as phony as a drag queen’s tits.” He always liked the way she translated profanity. She thought for a moment then asked politely if drag queens were men wearing woman’s clothing. He said yes. Then she asked if they were actors like in the Peking Opera. He said, “No, not like that.” She nodded that she understood then turned to the Chinese men.

  “So what did fuck-face say?” demanded the leader.

  “Mr. Cowens suggests that the manuscript you are trying to sell him is less than fully authentic. In fact he stated that it is as fake as a man with succulent mammary glands.”

  Robert smiled – “succulent” hadn’t been part of what he had said. That tidbit said something about his translator – about her sexual orientation, perhaps. That, in turn, answered a lot of questions about her, the way the Chinese treated her – with a stiff, angry indifference, the way she stayed aloof, her acceptance of the ostracism inherent in working for foreigners.

  He smiled again. He liked questions to be answered.

  Naturally the Chinese men began vociferously defending the authenticity of their offering. Robert picked up a few of the phrases – “directly from Khotan,” “the best find in years from the Taklamakan,” “he’s being a long-nosed idiot,” “we’re insulted by the accusation,” and so on and so on – blah, blah, blah. Robert wondered what the Mandarin word for blah was, then set it aside – who cared?

  Robert took the plastic-wrapped scroll they were trying to sell him from his briefcase and held it out to them. Sir Auriel Stein had unmasked this kind of forgery more than a hundred years ago, right at the beginning of the mad rush by Europeans to rape the Silk Road’s desert temples of their sacred texts, statuary, and frescos.

  The men protested loudly but didn’t bother reaching for the scroll. That sealed it. If the scroll were even remotely valuable they would have snatched it back from him. But they didn’t. They just made noise.


  “Enough.” His voice cut through the babble of complaint. The men stopped and stared at him. Chinese were loud-spoken by nature but were always surprised when a Westerner raised his voice. Robert chuckled to himself. Just an old trick – raising the voice – but a good one. He put out his hand and whispered to his translator, “Don’t translate this.” He bowed slightly to the men, tilting water from his umbrella as he did so, put the fake scroll back in his briefcase – never know when a fake could come in handy – and smiling, yet again, said, “Fuck you very much.” Then he added, “See you a year from Simchas Torah.” He looked at his translator and inquired, “Don’t know how to translate that, do you?”

  She smiled back and said, “No, Mr. Cowens, I don’t.”

  “Good,” he said, “how ’bout lunch before we meet the next set of charlatans?” She nodded, dismissed the Chinese men, and led the way, unaware that Robert momentarily lingered – his eyes glued to the window high up the Bund building from which Silas Darfun had ruled an empire and perhaps ruined Robert’s life.

  Forked lightning snapped into being above the building. Robert smiled and said under his breath, “Devil Robert’s closing in on you, you old fuck.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT HOME

  Lily stood by their rain-streaked apartment window that overlooked the courtyard on the grounds of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Xiao Ming was lying on a blanket to one side. Usually at this hour the baby was with Lily’s mother, but because it was the first Monday of the month the old woman had to attend her building’s party meeting.

  Fong stood across the room from Lily, waiting.

  “I’m sorry, Fong.”

  “Don’t be, Lily.”

  “It just – I just put my hand into the mud and – it surprised me.”

  Fong looked at his strong-willed wife and wondered at the change in her since she’d given birth to Xiao Ming.

  “I understand, Lily. I really do,” he said opening his arms to her. She moved toward him and allowed him to pull her close. She snuggled into the hard body of her middle-aged husband knowing that he really didn’t understand.

  He held her to him knowing that she knew that he didn’t really understand.

  She pecked him on the cheek, handed him a photograph, and returned to the window. Then she turned and addressed him like a dim-witted student, “Think time, Fong,” she announced in her personal variant of the English language. She indicated the photograph in his hand and the empty vertical space to the left of the window and said, “It beautiful fits here, Fong.”

  For an instant Fong recalled a similar translation error on a sign in a major Nanjing Lu department store. The small plaque outside the lady’s dressing rooms had said in English, “Women have fits here.” He smiled, then looked away.

  “Nothing’s funny here, Fong,” Lily snapped reverting to her beautiful Shanghanese. “It’s a rare find. Totally unique.” Then to add a practical justification she added, “And just the right size.” Fong didn’t care about the latter. But Lily was right. The central figure of the stone piece was exquisite.

  “No!” Fong said too loudly, then put the photograph back on top of the others on the table.

  Lily folded her arms across her chest. “Why?”

  “Because I’d be uncomfortable with it, Lily,” said Fong, anxious not to know why he was resisting.

  “But why, Fong? Give me a reason,” Lily demanded.

  Before he could reply, Xiao Ming began to cry. The baby seemed to sense even the slightest tension between her parents. The smallest disagreement was met with angry wails of protest. It confused Fong.

  Lily reached down and picked up Xiao Ming. Fong stared at the image of his wife and baby. Lily was never so beautiful as when she pulled aside her blouse and, releasing a breast, suckled their daughter. Beautiful, but somehow distant – somehow complete without him. That confused him too.

  As the child sucked happily – her tiny, slender fingers and soft palms cupping her mother’s breast – Fong picked up the photograph of the ancient fresco. The single standing male with his arms up, palms toward the heavens, dominated the piece. The man’s features were partially obscured but clearly they were not Han Chinese.

  “Where did you get it, Lily?”

  “Think of it as a riddle, Fong.”

  “What?”

  “A riddle. Figure it out.”

  “You’re the one who’s good at riddles Lily, not me.”

  “True. Have you heard this one, Fong? No one at my lab could solve it.”

  “Lily . . .” This too confused him. When had his wife become enamoured of riddles? What was next – jokes?

  “Okay. Listen carefully, Fong. Ready?” Fong nodded. “Good. Okay. Here it is. A man and his son are in a terrible car accident. The father is instantly killed and the boy is badly hurt. He is rushed to the hospital and right into the operating room. The surgeon comes running in, takes one look at the boy and screams: My son! Now, Fong, how can the surgeon be the boy’s father when the boy’s father died in the car crash?”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the riddle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not much of a riddle, Lily. Obviously the surgeon is not the boy’s father – the surgeon is the boy’s mother.”

  Lily looked at him, disappointed.

  “Is that right, Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now answer my little riddle. Where did you get the photographs of the frescos?”

  The baby released Lily’s nipple, looked at her father, then rolled back to her previous position. Lily grimaced as the baby bit down hard.

  Lily looked at Fong. Her husband. Father to their baby. Her boss at Special Investigations. “I got them in the market.”

  “From a Tibetan?’

  “In fact, she was a Tibetan. A very cute Tibetan, Fong. I think you would have found her attractive.”

  “Lily–”

  “Fong, everything here belonged to you and Fu Tsong. Even this apartment was hers. It’s in the Shanghai Theatre Academy because she was an actress here. I am not an actress, Fong. What am I doing here?” She threw up her arms and let out a sigh. “If we are going to stay here I need things that are mine — that belong to me — not her. That,” she said, pointing at the ancient fresco in the photograph, “will belong to me and I need it.”

  Fong glanced out the window. It had stopped raining. Brilliant sunshine bathed the courtyard. A young inebriated student actor staggered across the courtyard singing loudly. Fong didn’t want to admit that he was past the point in his life of making a new home. Of shopping and selecting and caring for things. He was actually anxious to rid himself of possessions, and here his young wife was desperate to start collecting.

  He didn’t know what to say.

  The baby let go of Lily’s nipple with a slight plopping sound, then let out a loud fart. The sweet smell of baby poop filled the room.

  That confused Fong as well.

  “I’ve got to get back to the office,” Fong said.

  “My mother’ll be back in half an hour. I’ll see you in forensics in about an hour.”

  “Sure.”

  He didn’t move to kiss her goodbye. He just stared at her and Xiao Ming – so complete – in and of themselves.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ANGEL MICHAEL AND SKELETONS

  Angel Michael kept his eyes tightly shut through the last jagged edges of the pain. He waited until the tide of hurt ebbed far from the shore, then he opened his eyes. He was sitting alone, head bowed, in a brilliant pool of post-storm sunlight that streamed through the window of his room on the sixty-fifth floor of the Shanghai Metron Hotel. He turned to the light and watched it separate into its colours as it passed through a tiny imperfection in the glass pane. Putting out his hand, he allowed the rainbow to colour his skin. “This is the light revealed,” he said, then looked down at the coffee table in front of him. He carefully cracked the thin g
lass of the last of the old-fashioned flash bulbs from the pack. Then he sprinkled the phosphorus onto the polished surface. He looked at the chemical strands and said to the empty room, “Threads of light.”

  He carefully swept the phosphorus into a Ziploc bag, then shallowed his breathing like a monk does before a full night of prayer. But the man in the light was not praying. No. Angel Michael was not praying. He was bathing in the light and planning how to release the light inside himself – the light he had first experienced when he was a six-year-old boy in a small Virginia town, in the farm country outside of Washington, DC.

  Shanghai’s new police commissioner opened his office window allowing the rain-scoured air to refresh the large room. He wore his party status lightly this day – like he wore his Western-style suits. Fong had heard he was better educated than his predecessors. It was rumoured that he even read a little English. But he was still a party man – a politico. Fong knew that to be named the police commissioner of Shanghai his party loyalty would have been severely tested and found unwavering.

  “All I’m asking is an explanation, Zhong Fong,” the commissioner repeated as he returned to his seat behind his over-large desk. There was a knock at his door. “Come,” he called without taking his eyes from Fong.

  The new head of CSU entered with two of his officers. The commissioner nodded at them. They nodded back – all very chummy. It was obvious they knew what this meeting was about and were preparing to enjoy Fong’s discomfort.

  “Sir,” Fong said, “I understand the chain of command at Special Investigations–” Shit, I had a lot to do with setting it up in my first stint as head of Special Investigations, he thought but decided not to add out loud.

  The commissioner made noises meant to placate him then returned to his theme, “Why are you pursuing the investigation into the skeleton in the construction pit?”