The Golden Mountain Murders

by David Rotenberg

  The man looked truly hurt by this. Maybe he really liked soup.

  As they walked back to their vehicle, Chen asked, “Was that smart, sir?”

  “No, Chen it wasn’t, but I’m tired of being smart – smart’s not getting us anywhere with this.”

  And so their investigation went – over and over again, for month after month. From sick peasants to blood heads to blood merchants to blood packagers to local political officials who, for a cut, licensed the practice.

  Back in his bug-free Shanghai office overlooking the Bund, Fong threw his files to the floor.

  “Sir?”

  “What kind of world are we living in, Chen?”

  “The new . . .”

  “There must be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people involved in this, Chen.”

  “And many more than that quite sick, sir.”

  “Yes. Many more. But every middleman we put out of business is replaced by another in a week. The lure of the money is too great to stop the trade. There are always poor Chinese who are looking for a chance to better themselves.”

  “It is encouraged by the government,” said Chen.

  “What?” snapped Fong.

  Then Chen added as clarification, “Bettering oneself, not collecting blood.”

  Fong thought about that. He wondered how much difference there really was between those two things: bettering oneself and collecting blood.

  “Sir?”

  “There’s almost no use working from this side. As long as the money is available from the West we won’t be able to stop this.”

  “But this is happening here, sir.”

  “Yes,” said Fong as he turned his back on the setting sun. Then he pointed east towards the coming darkness. “But the money comes from there. The Golden Mountain.”

  Then his eyes panned down to the crowded streets and his heart skipped a beat. He blinked and it was gone. But for an instant Fong was sure he had seen a peasant man standing on a bench on the raised Bund Promenade looking right at him – no, through him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ON THE WAY

  Fong’s eyes soaked it in. The puffs of clouds over the shallow upland valleys, the sharp snow-covered ridges that, Great Wall–like, connected the coastal peaks. Then the high meadows followed by flatness – cut into rectangular demarcations of farms, then another set of wooded foothills.

  So un-Chinese these Canadian mountains.

  Where were the rice paddies climbing every hill, the fields growing right to the edge of the villages? But then again, through his airplane window he hadn’t seen many urban areas since he’d boarded the plane in Vancouver.

  Then yet more mountains and a river cutting deeply through it – and a single road – a paved highway in the midst of nowhere – very, very un-Chinese.

  Wide dirt paths joined the upper level pastures, but in the valley a pristine, empty, paved blacktop cut through. Fong shook his head, unable to comprehend the logic behind spending vast numbers of yuan to build an unused road.

  Here in the early-twenty-first century, a mere nine months after two airplanes brought down the World Trade Towers, Inspector Zhong Fong, head of Shanghai’s Special Investigations Unit was seeing North America – the Golden Mountain – for the first time.

  He listened to the English spoken around him and marvelled at the variations in both the use of the language and the origins of the speakers. But what drew his attention most was the wealth – everywhere such wealth.

  Another valley town, a river to the north, train tracks to the south, a four-lane highway seemingly through the centre, slid silently beneath the belly of the plane.

  He was heading to an international conference on terrorism outside a place called Calgary in a canton called Alberta. He had to do a lot of prompting and cajoling to get the assignment, but finally the new powers in Beijing had relented – then in their inimitable style insisted – that he go. “Well, if you think this is important,” he had said with a shrug. They had dismissed him quickly and he had been happy to leave their presence.

  The next evening, well after office hours, his team gathered: Lily, his ex-wife and forensics expert; her new husband, the remarkably ugly but remarkably honest Captain Chen; Kenneth Lo, his info-tech guy; and two young officers whom he had, of late, taken under his wing. Joan Shui was back in Hong Kong settling the final details of the sale of her condominium before moving to Shanghai to join both Fong and Shanghai’s Special Investigations Unit as their arson specialist. Even if Joan were in Shanghai, Fong was unsure if he could handle a meeting with Lily on one end of the table and Joan on the other. At this point he thought it unlikely that even he could ride those cross-currents without drowning.

  The room’s thick dusty draperies were shut and the lights on the table were all dimmed and hooded. The room was already thick with cigarette smoke by the time Fong arrived. Lily held a cup of steaming cha in her elegant hand. Kenneth Lo had several smallscreen gizmos in front of him and was busily tapping a tiny computer screen with a metal stick. Captain Chen hovered over Kenneth’s shoulder, watching. The two young officers were supplying most of the dense cheap tobacco smoke that accompanied almost all meetings in the People’s Republic of China. Fong recalled once telling a group of officers that there was no smoking. They took him to mean that there was no smoking, now – they butted out and within ten minutes lit up again.

  Fong allowed his fingers to trace the edge of the familiar old oval table. He’d convened many meetings here before. But this was different. This wasn’t a sanctioned departmental meeting. Fong shrugged off a shiver of tension and laid out the basics of the blood trade, just to be sure that everyone understood where they were with all this.

  “It took me longer to get our Beijing compatriots to agree to my trip to the West than I’d anticipated so our time line is pretty tight.” He reached into his pocket and put on his glasses, jotted a note on his pad and pocketed it. Turning to the two officers he said, “You’re up.”

  The younger of the two cleared his throat and handed out copies of a newspaper article. “Everyone should give this a quick read.”

  The article was from the Wall Street Journal, Asia edition, under the headline “Blood for Sale”:

  Last December the residents of Appleton, Wisconsin, were told that their small town had a blood crisis and that everyone should chip in by rolling up their sleeves and donating blood.

  The citizens did as they were asked and donated generously to help save the lives of their friends and neighbors.

  What the Appletonians didn’t know, though – don’t know to this day – was that the same December their blood bank was appealing for blood, it sold 650 pints at a profit to other blood banks around the country. They also didn’t and don’t know that last year their blood center contracted to sell 200 pints a month to a blood bank 528 miles away in Lexington, Kentucky, and that Lexington sold half the blood it bought from Appleton to yet a third blood bank near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Which in turn sold thousands of pints it bought from Lexington and other blood banks to four hospitals in New York City.

  What began as a generous “gift of life”from people in Appleton to their neighbors ended up as part of a chain of blood brokered to hospitals in Manhattan, where patients were charged $120 a pint. Along that 2,777-mile route, human blood became just another commodity.

  Fong took a pencil and circled the words “just another commodity” then said, “Okay. So that’s the demand side. What’s next?”

  The other young investigator handed out a somewhat lengthy document. “This is the formal complaint registered by some members of the Canadian Chinese community with our government. Because all Chinese people technically remain citizens of the People’s Republic of China and their complaint is against what are technically foreigners, we were able to make the case that their complaint falls under Special Investigations rubric since it’s a crime by foreigners.” Lily whistled. Everyone looked at her. “And they bought that bullshit? No
t to mention the crap about all Chinese technically being citizens of this country.” “They were anxious to get it off their desks, Lily,” Fong said, “but I agree with you that it stinks. At the present moment I don’t have time to go into it further. It’s a gift that came our way, so I’m taking it as such.”

  “Don’t kick a horse’s gift in the mouth, huh?” Lily said in her unique varietal form of English.

  Fong momentarily tried to decipher Lily’s meaning but he quickly gave up and said, “Right.” Then he turned to one of the young investigator. “Do these Canadian Chinese have a case?”

  The other officer responded, “A great case. Not only were Chinese people brought to Canada to build their railroad under totally false pretenses but once they were there they were treated more like slaves than workers. They were never supplied with the proper clothing for the harsh winters. They made less than 30 percent of what Long Noses made doing the same work. They were forced to do most of the dangerous tasks. Hundreds, maybe thousands, died on the job. Then when it was finally done, they all but kicked them out of the country and then charged them a head tax to return. And they wouldn’t allow Chinese women in. Just men to do hard work.” The man sneered as he added, “They didn’t want us breeding in their pristine country.”

  “Is there more?” Fong asked.

  “Lots. Laws denying Chinese the right to work and live in various cities were enacted. Laws everywhere to make sure that they came as slaves and stayed slaves.”

  “These laws are still in place?”

  “No. But they were for years and years. In fact, from 1924 to 1947, Chinese were not allowed to enter Canada at all.” He took a moment, then added, “No Canadian government has made even a mention of reparations.”

  Fong nodded. He knew the basics of the story. Every Chinese person did. “Seems legit to me,” said Fong. “And what do the Chinese Canadians want from the Canadian government after all this time?”

  “An apology,” the younger investigator said.

  “A formal apology,” the other investigator added.

  “And what has our government done about this?” asked Lily.

  “Very little,” said the younger investigator.

  Fong stood, crossed to the nearest curtain and smoothed out the seam, “They’ll hold this sort of thing and only bring it forward when they have something to gain by doing so.”

  “That may be soon,” said Kenneth in his stumbling Mandarin. He was much more comfortable speaking English or Cantonese. The highly idiomatic Shanghanese dialect was quickly becoming the bane of his move to Shanghai, which hadn’t exactly been a move of choice. When Hong Kong was handed back to China by the British, many businessmen – whose businesses were just on the wrong side of the law – were approached by the mainland authorities. The approach was none too subtle. It was an ultimatum. Jail or come work for the state. Fong was desperate for an advanced IT man and Kenneth admirably fit the bill. After thinking for twenty seconds about jail, Kenneth accepted the offer to work for Special Investigations, Shanghai District. Much to Kenneth’s surprise he liked his new work and very much liked his new colleagues. It was a unique experience for him to be on the good guy’s side of the law.

  “Why is that, Kenneth?” asked Lily.

  “China’s economy is booming but we have very few raw materials left in our country. To feed our factories we must either trade for or, preferably, control sources of those raw materials. The Canadians have raw materials – iron ore, nickel, cobalt – you name it. But they have traditionally balked at allowing foreign governments to buy into their primary industries.”

  “So you think that Beijing will try to use the historical treatment of Chinese in Canada to shame them into allowing us to buy into their raw material industries?”

  “That’s quite a stretch, isn’t it?” asked Lily.

  “Is it? The British were shamed into honouring the contract to return Hong Kong – you may recall that event.”

  “It was what brought your wonderful self into our presence,” Lily said, without a hint of a smile.

  Fong thought about Kenneth’s late arrival in Shanghai. He still wondered why it had taken Kenneth six months to settle some sort of business west of the Wall before he reported for work in Shanghai.

  “Who exactly are the Chinese Canadians who are organizing this drive for an apology from the Canadian government?” asked Captain Chen.

  The older of the two officers handed out several dossiers. Everyone quickly scanned them. Pretty standard stuff. Names, birthplaces, ethnicities, family connections both in Canada and in the Middle Kingdom, incomes, etc.

  “Do you think they’re organized enough to help?” Chen asked.

  The officer nodded. “They’ve got money and lots of hands, eyes and ears.”

  Fong thought, naturally they have lots of hands, eyes and ears – they’re Chinese. He took a quick breath and hoped everyone would leave it at that. His other contacts in the West and Lily’s research on the Chinese-Canadian men weren’t things he was prepared to discuss in this forum. He said, “How much do they need to know about what I’m doing?”

  “I don’t know, sir. You’ll have to figure that out when you meet them. At this point all they claim to want is your assistance in getting them their apology from the Canadian government.”

  Fong returned to his seat. “Get them my Calgary information, Kenneth.”

  “Sure,” Kenneth replied, “but it will be tracked. Every email is tracked, especially anything out of here.”

  That’s why I ordered that raid on the Internet café last week and in the confusion sent that email to Robert Cowens, he thought. Then he looked at Kenneth again. He hoped the danger had passed for the man. Kenneth smiled for no particular reason – Fong realized that sometimes he did that to people. Then he said, “Repeat what you just said to me, Kenneth.”

  “Sure, Fong – basically that email out of the People’s Republic of China is tracked.”

  A small shiver slithered up Fong’s spine. Tracked – we’re all being tracked, he thought, but again he said nothing.

  “What, Fong?” Lily’s voice was insistent. She knew him better than anyone else in the room and he was afraid she could see through any sort of lie he put forward, so he changed the topic. “What have you found for me, Lily?”

  “Lucky you, Short Stuff,” she said in her personal take on the English language. Kenneth smiled. She shot him a look that took the grin off his face. “Dead mom, no blood I claim, shoe fits, must convict.”

  Fong took a second to decipher that. Kenneth couldn’t begin to guess what it meant. “Give me the details, Lily.”

  To do so Lily reverted to her beautiful lilting Shanghanese, “Poor Mrs. Jiajou was admitted to the Hua Shan Hospital six days ago with pains in her chest. Shortly after she arrived she had a stroke and they were not able to resuscitate her. When I checked her chart I saw that her son worked at the Port of Shanghai. That’s why I called you. I talked to him and told him, as you told me to, that his mother had died because the hospital had run out of blood.”

  “Good, Lily. What’s the son’s name?”

  “Jiajou Shi and, by the by, he’s no ordinary dockworker, he’s third in command of the harbour facility. What more could you ask for?”

  “Not much, thanks Lily.”

  She reverted to English, “No problem, Short Stuff, care though be. No like I this one bite.”

  The next afternoon Fong used his Special Investigations ID to get him and Captain Chen into the restricted area of the Shanghai port facility.

  The huge harbour was alive with activity. Cranes lifted massive metal containers high in the air then swung them over the open holds of the great oceangoing vessels. Men guided each container to its sea berth. The echoes of their shouts just made it to where Fong and Captain Chen stood and watched. In some ports heavy work was done solely by computer- controlled robotics, but this was the Port of Shanghai – in the People’s Republic of China. There are few, if any, j
obs that are too menial – too beneath the dignity of a Chinese labouring man in need of a wage to feed his family. The Shanghai port, the very centre of the world’s foremost economic miracle, is still powered by the cheap and readily available sweat of men, Fong thought, as he struck a match and held it out towards the cigarette that dangled from the thick lips of harbour master, Jiajou Shi.

  When Fong first produced his ID, the man’s face had revealed no more than a rock reveals when you kick it.

  Captain Chen stood to one side as Fong had instructed. Sure enough, the poor man’s features acted as a conversation starter. Glancing at Chen, Jiajou Shi said, “If he was a fish and I was starving, I’d throw him back.” The harbour master steadied Fong’s hand and drew the flame towards the cigarette in his mouth. Fong sensed the smoke before he smelled it. The man smoked Snake Charmers. Fong had smoked them for years before he’d switched to Kents.

  “So what’s this all about, Inspector?” The man took a bottle of Fanta from the railing and snapped the top off with his teeth.

  “That’s not the recommended way of opening those,” Fong said.

  “Yeah, well . . .” the harbour master said then emptied almost half of the sweet orange concoction in a gulp. The man waited for Fong to say something. Fong didn’t oblige him. “Well, this has been fun but your cute friend over there is making my stomach turn so I’m going to get back to . . .”

  “Your work,” Fong said then put his hands in his pockets and stared at his shoes.

  The harbour master looked at Fong’s shoes too. Then he stopped looking and turned to go. “There’s blood in three of the refrigerated containers. Chinese blood.”

  Jiajou Shi stopped and turned back to Fong. “Is that illegal, Inspector? If it is then arrest the offenders and get it off my ships. If it’s not, then fuck yourself very much and leave me to do my work.”

  “It’s Chinese blood taken from Chinese for almost nothing that will be sold to rich Long Noses so they can live an extra day or two.”