The Hua Shan Hospital Murders

by David Rotenberg

  But it was the newest parts of the stop protocol that had the greatest effect on Joan Shui as she and Wu Fan-zi retreated to her hotel room. The most recently added section of the protocol closed all long distance phone lines and totally shut down the thirty- four massive servers that handled all Internet and e-mail traffic in and out of the region.

  “What does REJECTED FOR PUBLIC SECURITY mean?” asked Joan, holding out the phone for Wu Fan-zi.

  He took the phone and listened. “You were calling Hong Kong?”

  “Trying to report our new findings.”

  He punched a local ten-digit number and it rang. He hung up.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Local calls work.” He dialled a Beijing number and quickly got the REJECTED FOR PUBLIC SECURITY message. “Try your computer.”

  “It’s a long distance call to get to my server in Hong Kong.”

  “My server’s local.” Wu Fan-zi punched in his access codes on her laptop. “Give me the e-mail address of your office.” She did and he typed it in and hit the send button. Instantly his “in” box dinged. He opened the returned message: REJECTED FOR PUBLIC SECURITY.

  “Can they do that?”

  “Not meaning to be flip, but they just did, Ms. Shui.”

  “So, Big Brother really is listening over on this side.”

  “Not listening, rejecting.”

  She smiled. “So we’re sort of isolated.”

  “Yep, only eighteen million people to play with.”

  Her smile grew. “That might be enough, if . . .”

  “If what, Ms. Shui?”

  “If you, Mr. Wu, are one of those eighteen million.”

  He opened his wallet and withdrew his Shanghai residency permit and let out a deep sigh. “Hey – lucky me – I’m one of the eighteen million.”

  “No,” she corrected him, “I’m the lucky one to be with the one of the eighteen million who is standing — now sitting, right here.” Their hands touched. She was tempted to say something smart. He was tempted to ask why him. But neither spoke – although their bodies did a lot of talking in the next hour.

  Fong’s cell chirped. He spoke into it sharply, “Dui.”

  “We’ve picked him up, sir.”

  “Bring him to my office and officer . . .”

  “Sir.”

  “As I said before, I want him shackled.”

  Fong sat in his office on the Bund and straightened his Mao jacket. It was a useful thing to wear when interviewing Westerners. It tended to scare the shit out of them.

  For a moment Fong allowed himself to remember the pockets he’d sewn into the lining of his jacket when he was in internal exile west of the Wall. Then he stood up and shouted, “Dui! ”

  A young German couple was guided into the room. They stood very close together. He was shackled hand and foot. Fong flipped open their file. “Mr. and . . .?”

  “My wife, Mrs. Helen Tator.” His English was fine although the accent caught Fong off guard. He totally ignored the shackles that bound him.

  Fong allowed a smile to come to his lips.

  “What can we do for you, sir?” The man’s voice was icy.

  “You are in Shanghai on business?”

  “Yes, I’ve been here for two weeks. My wife just arrived yesterday. It’s her first time in China. I doubt she’ll wish to return.”

  “Really,” Fong said pushing that aside. Fong glanced down at the file in front of him to get the figures right. “You had seventeen-thousand-five-hundred American dollars transferred to your account in Shanghai on Monday of last week Mr. Tator and the funds were removed in twenty-five-hundred-dollar increments.” He looked up. “There’s only five thousand dollars left.” Mrs. Tator was obviously shocked. She went to say something but Mr. Tator shot her a look. Fong watched the body posture of the two change. They were no longer putting on the show of being together.

  “She must be quite a woman,” Fong said simply.

  “Who must be?” asked Mrs. Tator sharply.

  Fong smiled – she did speak English. He’d had it up to his eyeballs with being nice to wealthy Western businesspeople who thought they had every right to do whatever they fucking well wanted to in Shanghai. “Why, Mrs. Tator, the woman your husband was paying twenty-five-hundred dollars a night.” The moment he said it he was sorry that he’d ventured into this territory. Revenge was never as sweet in actuality as it was in anticipation.

  “Why did you do this, Inspector?” Mr. Tator’s question was surprisingly simple and honest. Almost the question of a child asking a parent about some misdeed – like leaving Mommy for another woman. “Because some foreigner is setting off bombs in our hospitals and he must be getting his financing from outside the country,” spat back Fong, more angry with his own rash behaviour than with the Tators.

  “And you thought I was this person,” said Mr. Tator. “Just for the record, Inspector, I have been paying that money to a registered agency of the government of the People’s Republic of China in an effort to secure an infant. It is why my wife is here. It is why I am here. It is what the money was used for. We are unable to have a child of our own.” He reached into his pocket and produced a series of Interior Ministry receipts and put them one after another in a straight row on the desk in front of Fong. “Do you have any more questions for me, sir? Or have you done with insulting me and my wife?”

  Fong waved his hands and the officers unshackled Mr. Tator. Fong started to apologize but the look of pure racial hatred on Mrs. Tator’s face stopped him. Just for an instant he considered doing what he could to stop the adoption. Then he saw Mr. Tator’s eyes. They were pleading with him not to.

  “Please,” he said, “I will be very good to this child. I will.” Fong noted Mr. Tator’s use of the first person pronoun. “I know my wife, officer. I do.” His plea reminded Fong of another case where a man thought he knew his wife. Fong was just a young cop long before he was in Special Investigations. A house warden had called. There had been screaming heard coming from a small room and the door was locked. Fong had broken down the door easily enough but what greeted him was not so easy for him to forget. A child had been impaled against a wall with a kitchen knife through his side. The mother stood beside him covered in blood, her eyes wild. The father stood against the far wall, his sister behind him cowering. When Fong entered, the mother immediately grabbed a cleaver and headed toward him. The husband leapt on his wife’s back, tackling her to the ground. Fong took the cleaver from her. Hatred roamed the woman’s eyes – and madness, most palpable. The boy was rushed to the hospital and survived. The husband pleaded with Fong to allow him to care for his wife, that she was sick, that he knew his wife – didn’t need to be in jail – needed to be looked after. Fong had relented. Three days later the husband was found dead in the alley behind the building.

  Fong turned to Mr. Tator. “If anything happens to that baby–”

  “It won’t.”

  Fong nodded.

  After the Tators were escorted out of his office, Fong sat for some time. He was tired. His fatigue was clearly affecting his judgment. He wanted to lash out but he didn’t have a target for his rage. Then the phone on his desk rang and a glimmer of hope danced across his face.

  They’d found the white guy with the camcorder.

  Robert Cowens, Devil Robert to most of his Chinese associates, stood very still watching the Chinese children. They swarmed around the Caucasian guests just as they had the other times he had visited Shanghai’s famous Children’s Palace. He looked at the mass of children, then up to the small balcony on the south side of the vast entrance hall in which he stood. It didn’t take much imagination to see Silas Darfun’s ghost looking down at the assembled Europeans who had come to ogle his Chinese children. Well, why shouldn’t old Silas’s ghost be here – this place had been his home. After all, it was the very house in which he had adopted and raised his street urchins – and others, if Devil Robert’s father was correct. The house was actually a mans
ion built in the late twenties. It sat on the triangle of land at the crossing of Ya’nan Lu and Nanjing Lu. The property was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high, broken-glass-topped wall of field stone. On the southern wall along the much travelled Nanjing Lu side, a governmental “photo” lesson was on display for the populace. In the ten simple photographs a corrupt official is captured and tried and apologizes to the people of China and is executed. Throughout the city these graphic reminders that your government is watching you are on display. The forty-two-room mansion, sitting gracefully behind the wall, was classic English Victorian – rendered entirely in dark Asian hardwoods. Lofty ceilings and stained glass added an air of cathedral to what was actually a rural British palace design. Needless to say, a rural British palace – complete with extensive gardens – was a complete anomaly in Shanghai’s urban crush.

  The tour guide’s English was better than usual for the People’s Republic of China. A lot better than the first guide Robert had when he initially ventured into the castle keep of his enemy.

  Robert felt a small hand grab his fingers. Looking down he saw a round-faced five- or six-year-old Han Chinese boy tugging at him. The boy opened his smiling mouth and shouted: “Well Come t’China!!” Three or four times. Robert finally replied in Mandarin, “Shei, sheh.” The boy’s smile grew and he shouted in Mandarin to his companions, “This stinky one thinks he speaks Chinese.” The others laughed. Then Robert’s little snot pulled hard on his hand and yelled, “Come! Dharma Club.” They surely meant drama club, but it certainly did sound like Dharma Club. “You come Dharma Club.”

  Robert and about half of the large group of Caucasians were “Shanghai’d” up a wide set of steps and shepherded into an expansive room that had a raised stage at one end. Unlike the other art rooms that he had seen on previous trips, the “Dharma” room seemed to be run by the children, not the teachers – the phrase inmates not wardens came to mind. The first twenty minutes of the children’s performance took just under half of forever. Bad dharma does that.

  Robert knew that in the Children’s Palace children were taught in the discipline most appropriate to their talents. Those with musical skills were trained to play instruments. Those with physical gifts were trained in dance. Those with drawing skills were trained to paint. From the dharma performance it was clear to Robert that when a child had an artistic bent but no particular skill – or shame – they were guided toward the dharma program.

  The dharma performance ended with perhaps the most unique rendering of the old Broadway hit Oklahoma that anyone, anywhere, had ever heard. As it crescendoed toward an ear-splitting conclusion a Caucasian woman, somewhat older than Robert, came out from the wings and gestured to the children. They looked at her and ended the song as if someone had unplugged them. Amomentary blessed silence followed but was quickly shattered when the dharma kids stepped forward and demanded a standing ovation. Which they got.

  Having gotten all they could from this group of stupid foreigners, the children began to disperse. Robert moved toward the Caucasian woman. She was busy shooing the children on their way, no doubt to get the next unsuspecting victims of the Dharma Club. Her features were heavy, Eastern European. Her nose was wide, as if it had been badly broken at one time and never reset properly. Her eyes were light brown but sunken and her hair was a stark grey – unusual in a world where grey hair is dyed, even by men. In fact, it is about the only officially sanctioned vanity in the People’s Republic of China, probably because so many leaders of this huge country are at the age when hair dying would be a concern.

  Robert approached her.

  “Do you teach the children?”

  The woman looked up at Robert. Her smile was wide and kind. Something crossed her face. Was it fear? Finally she said in Mandarin, “I am sorry but I only speak the Common Speech.” They were almost completely alone in the room now.

  “Fine,” replied Robert taking a step closer to her. He continued in his patchy Mandarin, “I could use the practice.”

  She gave no indication that she was surprised he spoke the language but was clearly growing agitated about something.

  “My name is Robert Cowens,” he said.

  She nodded and looked past him, over his shoulder.

  Robert quickly glanced at the door that had drawn her eye. It was half open and there was a long shadow of a human figure cast into the room. Was she being watched? He looked back at her. She took a step to get past him but he stepped in her path. A small whimper came from her – like it had from his mother when she was frightened. Like that which had come from his brother as he screamed, “No, Mommy! No Mommy no.”

  She pushed past him and ran toward the door.

  Robert turned to follow but the door burst open and fifty or sixty little dharma bums rushed in shouting in unison, “Well Come t’China,” as they dragged in their latest helpless victims. In the melee Robert lost sight of the woman.

  He finally made his way through the crowd and out the door. On the landing he looked in both directions but there was no one there. He ran to the balustrade and leaned over. There, three flights down, the middle-aged white woman was running down the stairs.

  “Rivkah!” he shouted.

  She stopped, just for a moment, then yelled in English, “Go away!” Then she turned and ran with tremendous speed down the remaining steps. Robert did his best to follow her but the place was a maze of rooms and hallways and locked doors. Eventually he gave up and approached the house matron. The young woman’s English was good, if starchy-stilted, “You say you saw a Caucasian woman with the students of drama, Mr. Cowens?”

  “Yes, that’s what I’ve been saying to you.”

  “Like yourself, Mr. Cowens, she must have been a visitor to Shanghai’s Children’s Palace.”

  “No. She works here.”

  “No. This cannot be. Only Chinese work here, Mr. Cowens.”

  He suddenly realized that she kept repeating his name so that she would remember it. She no doubt reported to some police agency. He turned and walked away from her. Over his shoulder he heard her voice. This time it was confident and proud. “China is a country of great mystery – do be careful – Mr. Cowens.”

  She watched his back as he retreated. This time it was a Caucasian woman. Last time he’d ranted about some white child. Before that he made a fuss about Old Silas buying children or some such nonsense. Crazy Long Noses were to be reported. She hadn’t bothered the other times, but enough was enough. Now if only she could remember who crazy Long Noses ought to be reported to.

  The camcorder man stood in his five-star hotel suite with his plump wife to his right and his video camera held tightly beneath his left arm. He was still wearing his white shoes and white belt although Fong assumed the man had changed his golf shirt and pants since last he had seen him.

  “We didn’t do anything wrong and besides we are American citizens and this is outrageous,” said the woman.

  For a moment Fong wished he’d worn his Mao jacket.

  “We should call the embassy, Cyril,” the woman continued.

  “Now just settle down and let’s hear what the little Commie bastard has to say for himself.”

  “Cyril! Watch your language.”

  “He doesn’t speak any English, Sadie, look at him over there, he must be waiting for his translator or something.”

  Fong considered Charlie Chan–style bowing and scraping but decided to pass up the fun stuff. “I’m more than capable of translating for myself, thank you very much. As a courtesy I contacted the hotel with our request.”

  “Yeah, right – so you did.” Cyril coughed into his fleshy fist. “Something about my video camera.”

  “Exactly. You were on the steps of the Hua Shan Hospital two days ago, weren’t you?”

  “Where?”

  Fong said the name slower, then with the wrong emphasis, then with the wrong pronunciation, finally with the wrong tones. That did it. The man’s face lit up.

  “Yeah, sure I was. The
big place with lots of steps.”

  “Big place with lots of steps – that’s it,” Fong thought but he said, “The very place.”

  “There was a fire there or something right?” said the man with an all too knowing smile on his corpulent lips.

  “Yes, there was,” Fong said slowly.

  “I got some of it on tape. I’ll be selling it to the highest bidder. Gonna pay for this whole trip from that one piece of footage. Everywhere me and the missus go, I take my video camera. Paid for two trips so far and this could well be numero three.”

  Fong held up a finger and moved to the window. He took out his cellular and called the only person he knew who knew much about American culture – Lily. “Do Americans buy videotapes from each other?”

  “No, Fong.”

  “But this guy says he’s going to sell the videotape to someone.”

  “The news networks probably.”

  “What? The news networks buy amateur videotapes?”

  “Think Grassy Knoll, Fong – it was worth tons of dollars.”

  Fong had no idea what a grassy knoll was or why it would be worth money. He glanced over. The guy was getting nervous.

  “Thanks, Lily,” he said and hung up. Then he turned back to the American couple.

  “You took pictures of the crowd outside the Hua Shan Hospital. Right?”

  “Right I sure as shootin’ did, every little ol’ face is right in here,” he said tapping the camera at his side.

  “These pictures are of no value to anyone.”

  “Not true, little man. Definito not true.” The man stepped aside to reveal a table strewn with newspapers from all over America. They featured stories about the bombing of the first abortion clinic. The papers must have cost the man a small fortune to buy in Shanghai. Fong didn’t even know that the Cleveland Plain Dealer could be bought here. He wondered what they plain dealt in Cleveland. Then he wondered what plain dealing was. Then he wondered what Cleveland was.