The Hamlet Murders

by David Rotenberg

  It was not a terribly impressive impression.

  “I’ve managed to clear the next few days. Are you busy?”

  Splutter, pause, clunk, then, “Great. Good. No, great.”

  “How about three nights at the Calden Inn?”

  The silence that followed was the longest yet. The poor lad was balancing his good fortune with the incredible expense of three nights at the Calden Inn. The Calden Inn was an exclusive private retreat just across from Macaw. Before Joan Shui had gone to Shanghai to investigate an arson in an abortion clinic and fallen hopelessly in love with Shanghai’s head fireman Wu Fan-zi, she had thought that a weekend at the Calden Inn was the height of chic. Wealthy men sometimes suggested the Calden Inn as a great place for a little R and R and she sometimes took them up on it. Before Wu Fan-zi, she thought of sex much the same way as she thought of calisthenics – sometimes the exertion was very pleasing and sometimes it was less pleasing. The only consistent reality of her many visits to the Calden Inn was the pleasure she had given the men she was with and the luxury that they had provided for her.

  “I’ve already made reservations in your name. I gave them your Visa number; we have it on file here for times that you have to go out of pocket for us. I got us a suite. I have to complete something here but I’ll meet you out there first thing tomorrow morning. Okay?”

  She didn’t have to wait for an answer. She knew what it was going to be.

  “Great. See you out there. Don’t be late.” She hung up then dialled the Calden Inn. She asked for the manager, who she’d befriended a few years back when she helped him solve a little arson-related unpleasantness in his kitchen.

  “Ms. Shui, how nice to hear from you,” the manager said with evident feeling.

  “I have a favour to ask.”

  “Ask, please.”

  “My new boss . . .” – since the handover, Hong Kongers used the term to refer to totally incompetent but politically connected mainland overseers appointed by Beijing – “. . . has a son who just won’t take no for an answer. He’s booked a suite at your resort for three nights. When he arrives, I need you to claim that I came and found that he wasn’t there on time so you assigned me my own private room in the other end of the building and that I have sworn you to secrecy so that under no circumstance will you tell him which room I am in.”

  “It is a large resort,” he chuckled.

  “And so very private.”

  “Indeed.” He cleared his throat. “And were you particularly angry at the young man’s tardiness?”

  “Furious.”

  “As well you should be. I myself am almost beyond speaking I am so profoundly upset by the actions of this young hellion.”

  “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure, Ms. Shui.”

  She hung up and made one more call. This to one of her snitches. Firebugs liked to brag – snitches were invaluable to arson inspectors.

  “Now what?” came the snivelling voice over the cell phone. “You going to bust my balls over exactly what this time?”

  Joan took a breath and asked sweetly, “Your balls grew back then?”

  “Ha, ha! Lady cops! Ye sheng!!! Spare me from lady cops.”

  “You know where the main forensics lab is?”

  “Near Qian Shui Wan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, I know where it is,” he said slowly.

  “Good. Follow a young tech named Clarence Chi and very early Saturday morning, say between 1 and 2 a.m., put a sizeable quantity of sand into the gas tank of his car.”

  “And I get what out of this, exactly?”

  “I conveniently lose the file on a certain restaurant robbery that took place last Tuesday.”

  “I thought you were arson.”

  “I am but I’ve got friends all over the place.”

  More muttering about lady cops, the general unfairness of the world and references to a particularly painful self-inflicted sex act, then in a small voice he said, “It wasn’t really a robbery. It was more that I was hungry.”

  “Therefore a restaurant?”

  “Right. I was hungry,” he quickly agreed.

  “You should keep your gloves on when you eat.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Everywhere – on the fridge, on the ovens, on the cash register – odd place to keep food, don’t you think? Robbery came to me because they ID’d your fingerprints in about ten minutes. Two guys claimed they’d seen your prints so often they recognized them by sight.”

  “Po gai! Po kai!!!”

  “I couldn’t have said it better. But today’s your lucky day. A little sand in a gas tank and all is forgiven.”

  “That simple, huh?”

  “That simple.”

  And that simply she had her cover to get out of Hong Kong, or so she hoped.

  At the entrance to the Nevada Texan strip club Joan tipped the doorman. The man pocketed the money, leered at her and said, “Dancin’ tonight, honey?”

  She smiled at him. He pulled aside the restraining rope and she entered the darkened club. The place had become even more popular since the arrival of the Beijing authority. The club and others like it represented an attachment to pleasure that was anathema to the puritanical Communists but was so much a part of the life of capitalist Hong Kongers. People now came to this club who wouldn’t have been caught dead in a place like this just six years before.

  Joan was directed to a small round table close to a corner, and before she smoothed out her skirt a martini was delivered. A demand for an outrageous amount of money quickly followed. Joan paid the tariff then asked, “Is Marie dancing tonight?” as she had been instructed to do in the Dalong Fada e-mail.

  The waitress, a slender girl with better legs than brains, smiled and winked.

  Joan assumed that meant yes.

  Five minutes later a silicon wonder approached her table carrying a milk crate. “You been waiting all your life for me, sweetie?” the girl asked.

  “Are you Marie?”

  “No. Don’t know any Maries.”

  Joan froze her out. “Get lost. And I’d be very careful with the breast augmentation. Latest studies have not been encouraging for the health of the recipient.”

  Ms. Silicon made a face. “Aren’t you fun?” she said picking up her box and heading back into the darkness. On the stage, a dancer was removing a kimono, with surprising grace. She was not particularly beautiful but her control of the silk garment was alluring.

  Joan spun as a hand landed on her shoulder. “I’m Marie. You asked for me?” The voice was deep, dusky. Joan went to turn but the voice commanded, “Don’t.” Joan looked straight ahead. “See the curtain on the far side to the left?” Joan was about to nod when she heard, “Don’t move your head. When I’m finished, pay me, head toward the curtain and through it. Go down the corridor to the bathroom and out the window. There’s a green Mini in the street at the end of the alley. The keys are beneath the driver’s side floor mat. Instructions are in the glove compartment. Good luck. Now turn and give me a kiss like you mean it.”

  Joan turned her head and felt soft lips quickly press against hers. Then a silken tongue circled her teeth. She found herself responding. The face was too close to her for her to see it – that was the point. The dark voice said, “Don’t respond. This isn’t about sex. It’s about the cause.”

  Then she was gone. Joan had no way to identify her if she were asked to. Which, once again, was the point. For an instant, Joan wondered at the complexity and professionalism of the system. Dalong Fada had only really been a presence for ten years and now it clearly had safe houses and methods that had been learned by the members.

  A wave of fear washed over her. Then she remembered why she was doing what she was about to do. China needed an opposition and, at this point in time, only Dalong Fada could stand in the way of the Beijing Communists destroying everything that Hong Kong had bled to build.

  She dropped yet more cash on the small table, made
as if she was checking for something in her purse and headed toward the curtain.

  Getting through the curtain was much simpler than dealing with the girls in the corridor on the other side of it. These girls weren’t paid to dance in the club. They paid the club to dance. Their dancing was a live ad for services that they provided in the dozens of small rooms that were on either side of the lengthy corridor.

  As Joan moved quickly down the corridor, the sounds and sights of sex for cash presented themselves at nearly every doorway. The positions varied but the basics of the transaction were always the same – the girls serviced the customers whether they were old or young, ugly or beautiful, men or women.

  Passing by one open door, Joan found herself momentarily transfixed by the gaze of a naked whore perched on the edge of the room’s sink. In front of her, a young man on his knees had buried his head between her thighs in what was clearly a vain effort to bring this whore to the release of clouds and rain. From the sounds emerging from her nether regions he was giving it his best efforts. Lucky for him he couldn’t see the look of infinite boredom on the young woman’s face.

  That expression changed when she saw Joan in the doorway of her cubicle. A smile crossed her lips. Her hips began to undulate against the young man’s face as she mouthed the words “Show me your tits” at Joan.

  With the ease of a practiced “eloquent,” Joan undid the topmost button of her blouse, then the next down, then the next. The whore’s mouth went slack. Her eyes glazed over. “Good,” Joan thought, “I want to be remembered as being here. I must have been seen entering, might as well leave a real memory.” As a cop she knew that this piece of information would be elicited early in the investigation and would stop everything else – hopefully long enough to let her get back from Shanghai and muddy the water with her Calden Inn alibi. Joan kept eye contact with the whore. The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head and she let out a low sigh. Then she clamped her thighs tight to the young man’s head and grabbed fistfuls of his thick black hair.

  As soon as the whore’s eyes closed, Joan raced to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. There were thankfully few people in her way and most were involved at the moment. She flung open the bathroom door, stood on the sink to reach the unlocked window, opened it and slipped out into the alley. The alley led her to a dimly lit street. There, across the roadway was the green Mini – unlocked, keys beneath the floor mat, instructions in the glove compartment and new identification papers affixed to the underside of the steering wheel.

  She followed the directions to the ferry docks and guided her car into line for the next boat to the mainland. As the instructions directed, once she parked her car in the belly of the boat, she went up the bow stairway and entered the women’s washroom. She counted four stalls, checked that the fourth was unused, then entered, closing but not locking the door behind her. The place wasn’t overly clean but for a lavatory that serviced both Hong Kong and the mainland she’d expected much worse.

  Five minutes later, the stall door was pushed open and a tiny, sharp-faced, older woman came in carrying a canvas bag. She didn’t say a word but signalled Joan to sit on the toilet. There was no seat cover so Joan balanced on the rim. The tiny woman went behind her and sat on the toilet tank. From her bag she pulled out a pair of shears and began hacking away at Joan’s long black hair. At first Joan wanted to resist then she said to herself, “Hey, it’s only my hair.” Then she said to herself, “Fuck, it’s my hair.” But she didn’t say anything aloud. When most of her long hair was on the stall’s floor, the woman hopped off the toilet tank and came around the front. She put a finger under Joan’s chin and lifted it. Then she completed her work with smaller scissors.

  When she finished cutting, she stood back and said her first words to Joan, “Take off your clothes.” The first thought in Joan’s head was that this was the only day in her life that two women had asked her to remove her clothing. She did as she was told.

  The woman examined her naked body. But this was not the kind of examination that the whore would have done. This one was clearly critical and worried. The tiny woman reached into her bag and withdrew a large rolled tensor bandage and began to bind Joan’s chest. “Let out your air.” Joan did. A few minutes later, Joan’s upper curves were flattened and uncomfortable. The tiny woman noticed and said, “Get used to it. Don’t even think about taking it off until you’re safely back in Hong Kong.” Then a thought crossed the woman’s face. As if the thought were somehow shouted aloud, Joan received the message crystal clear: After what you are going to do, even Hong Kong may not be safe.

  The tiny woman took a tattered Mao jacket and the traditional pyjama-like leggings from her bag and held them out to Joan. Joan put them on. It was summer. The jacket was suffocatingly hot – and both the jacket and pants stunk. They were supposed to. She was a peasant. Peasants don’t often smell nice.

  “Take off your shoes,” the woman ordered. When Joan did, the woman hissed in disapproval then slopped nail polish remover on Joan’s toes, none too gently, wiped it off with a rag and slid on a pair of cheap sandals.

  The woman then took a jar of theatrical “dirt” and rubbed wads of it into Joan’s neck, hands, feet and forehead. Once rubbed in, it looked like stains not dirt, as if Joan had gone for many months without proper bathing.

  “Hold out your hands.” The woman examined them closely and shook her head. Joan used clear nail polish so that wasn’t a problem but her nails were immaculate, a real source of pride for her. The woman took out her small scissors again and ripped at Joan’s nails, purposefully slashing into her cuticles and cutting jaggedly wherever possible. Once that was done, she looked at a hanging section of nail on Joan’s left ring finger and said, “Close your eyes. This might hurt.” Before Joan could do as she was asked, the woman slipped the offending finger into her mouth, clamped on the hanging section with her teeth and gave a mighty yank with her head. The nail tore and half came out in the woman’s mouth. She spat it to the ground. Joan felt as if she might faint. But she didn’t.

  The woman looked at Joan’s hands and nodded. “Good. They might pass. Open your mouth.” The woman took out a small vial with a dark liquid in it. Using a tiny brush she applied the liquid to several of Joan’s teeth. “Tooth black,” she explained as she put away the bottle. The woman then indicated that Joan should turn slowly. Joan did. The woman nodded, “As good as we can do for now.” She reached into her pocket and held out a badly torn and aged identity card. Joan took it. The woman began to pack up, scooping large hunks of Joan’s hair into her canvas bag. When she was done, she said, “Take five more minutes then come on deck.”

  “How will I know when five minutes is up? You have my watch.”

  “Count.” The woman was clearly not impressed with Joan’s first venture into peasanthood. “When you are on deck, don’t sit. Don’t look around. Get to the rail and stare at the water. When we land, you walk off. Give me the car keys and your other identity card.”

  Joan did.

  “Good luck,” the tiny woman said, “and if I was you I’d take a good dump here. It may be the last time you see a real toilet until you get back to Hong Kong.”

  When the ferry docked, Joan joined a long line of peasants who waited patiently while all the cars from below left the ferry, then the passengers in first class, second class and third class. Waiting without complaint was a new concept for Joan Shui.

  At the bottom of the gangplank there was a government official backed by two armed guards demanding papers. When Joan’s turn came, she held out her torn identity card. The man didn’t even look at it as he barked, “Move along.” This was new too. Not even a glance at her face, which was now dirt encrusted, or at her now seemingly non-existent chest, which thanks to the tensor bandage was beginning to really pinch.

  She was used to being the object of much male and some female attention and for a moment it really threw her not to be thought of as attractive. Up until that moment she hadn’t realized
how much, in the past, she had relied on the unquestioned fact of her beauty. “Sic transit gloria mundi,” she quoted to herself. A British education came in handy at the oddest of moments.

  On the night train north, in the fourth-class hard-seat compartment, she met her land contact – she almost fell asleep against her shoulder before she knew. “Do the exercises in your mind, they’ll keep you alert,” the middle-aged woman whispered.

  “I’m tired,” Joan said but was immediately sorry that she had spoken. The man across the way had ferret eyes. He was a common reality in mainland China. He and the millions like him were the natural product of a system that didn’t reward expertise but did reward those who rat on their fellow citizens. It was the only way that so few could control so many – Beijing had millions like this man working for them.

  Joan fell back on instinct – charm your way out. Mistake! With her blackened teeth and cropped hair, her smile and head bob were hardly fetching. His response shocked her. “An ugly whore,” he shouted. “What’s an ugly whore doing on the same train with honest comrades?”

  That was enough. Joan swallowed some air, as her younger brother had taught her to do many years ago at a family gathering, and belched right in the man’s face.

  He spat on the floor at her feet. She spat at his feet.

  He stared at her. She stared right back.

  They made quite a pair.

  Despite the fact that the train actually did go all the way to Shanghai, Joan and her escort got off as the sun was rising, some 200 miles south of the great city.

  “This train comes in to the North Train Station in Shanghai. It is watched. Always watched,” her escort said ominously. Once off the train, the heat hit Joan like a moist blanket. At least on the train there had been the motion of air through the windows. But here the air just hung from the dawning sky like a living, sleeping thing. Joan reached to undo the top buttons of her Mao jacket. “Don’t,” the woman said, “peasants are very wary of showing their bodies.”