The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory

by David Rotenberg

  Li Xiao was in the office by 6:30 and the pressure was already on. It was hard to answer the questions about yesterday’s failure to apprehend Zhong Fong. It was more difficult getting answers as to why the officers fired without his command. It was most difficult for him to accept that he was nothing but a pawn in this game— that he was head of this investigation in name only.

  Late last night he had challenged Commissioner Hu on that point. All that the commissioner had said was “No one is beyond expendability here. China is bigger than anyone person. You will do what you are told to do or you will go away. The choice is yours.” He chose to say nothing. In China that choice means that you accept. Now, the next morning, he was dealing with the consequences of his choice.

  The old man with the hoarse voice was not used to yelling. He was almost incapable of it. But he yelled at Commissioner Hu that today was to be the end of it all. That both men were to be dead by the end of the day or Commissioner Hu would be the commissioner of a ratinfested jungle outpost in the south. Commissioner Hu’s silence pleased him. It was assent and understanding. It felt very good to hang up on the commissioner. Such men were important to the system but left a foul taste in one’s mouth when one had to deal with them.

  The man with the cobra on his back had hurt her. How badly she didn’t know. The opium was still alive in her bloodstream. Its neural lubricant had allowed her into another place as he ranted at her. Hurt her. But now the pain was welling up. So, as the man continued to sleep on the palate in her cubicle, she slipped out into the hallway and hobbled toward the front. She was aware of the blood slipping down her legs. She didn’t care. She got to the front and pulled the policeman’s card out of the drawer beneath the phone. She dialled the number on the card. When the phone was answered she asked for Lily. She was met by a lengthy silence and then a woman’s voice came on the time.

  Lily only got in a few words before she was pushed aside by Shrug and Knock. “This is a call that the commissioner should hear about, isn’t it?” Lily sat stony still as Shrug and Knock forced answers from the opium whore. Lily wondered if this job was still worth having. She’d miss Fong.

  Fong awoke from his cruel night’s sleep. His back ached from the crunch of the brick behind him. Amanda was still asleep with her head in his lap. He looked at her facial wound and breathed a sigh of relief. The wound was clean. It had crusted smoothly. He reached into her pocket and pulled out the bottle of antibiotic. He crushed a tablet in his fingers and powdered the wound again. Her colour wasn’t bad and there still seemed to be no fever. For a moment the phrase “Luck is on our side” popped into his head. But he pushed it away as soon as it arose. Luck had kept her alive through the night. No luck would keep them alive today. Only thought and action. She was five feet eleven inches tall, white, and blond. Hard to hide in a city where the average height was five foot six, where there were few whites and no blonds. Where do you hide an albino giant in a city of short dark folks?

  Loa Wei Fen had heard Wu Yeh leave the cubicle. He didn’t move but he listened closely. His mind supplied him with a map of the opium den and the environs. He heard the click of the phone as she hung up. The snake rose on his back. Her padding feet were making their way back to him. The swolta seemed to move toward his hands. She who loved the black man would not see this day’s night. He who loved the opium whore would not see tomorrow’s dawn. At least not on this earth. Of both these things he was sure.

  The padding feet stopped outside the cubicle.

  • • •

  Fong pushed Amanda’s head down as she hunched in the back seat of the taxi. As they were stepping into the cab, Fong had seen a woman with a red armband race out of a nearby building. Her ferret eyes locked on him and Amanda. She would file her report in less than a minute. “To the North Train Station and hurry,” he yelled at the cabbie. The small red car took off with a lurch and blared its way into traffic.

  The call reporting Fong and Amanda was taken and transferred to Li Xiao’s cellular line. The young detective picked up the call just as he hopped out of his car and headed toward the door of the opium den. He barked into his cellular, “Get the cab number out to all the wardens and keep this line open. Send out everything that comes in to the police units on their radios and patch it through to this number as well.” He left the phone in the car and headed toward the opium den.

  He paid no attention to the small man crouched against the storefront across the way.

  But Loa Wei Fen, now dressed in the rags of an opium addict, paid more than a little attention to the policeman. As the patrol cars arrived from every side and surrounded the opium den, Loa Wei Fen watched. Watched and felt himself moving closer to the edge of the roof. Ready at long last for the jump.

  The gore of the opium whore was enough to turn Wang Jun’s stomach. Li Xiao cursed and stomped around. There were too many policemen for the tight corridors. The whole thing was out of hand. The commissioner was yelling for him somewhere off to one side. There was shouting and screaming everywhere. No one noticed the beggar man across the street rise and cross towards Li Xiao’s police car.

  And no one noticed him reach inside and take the cellular phone.

  The North Train Station was filled with people—but not filled enough to hide Amanda. Fong was faced with a hard choice. He was sure that the warden who saw them get in the cab had reported what she saw. If she had good eyesight she’d be able to supply the cab number. If so, Fong knew that they should change cabs. But if they got out of the cab Amanda would attract attention again. Then he saw them, bands of police officers moving quickly through the crowd. The recently arrived peasants moved out of the way as the police pushed their way through. “The bus station on the west side,” Fong snapped at the driver. When the driver paused, Fong reached into his pocket and threw a wad of kwai onto the front seat. The cab lurched forward. It was just past noon. Daylight was not their friend.

  Fong leaned out the window. There was a slight mist hovering over the Huangpo. The promise of the first summer storm hung in the air. He wondered for a moment if they’d be alive to see the rain. To drink in its liquid hope.

  The call from the North Train Station came in to all units. Wang Jun got it in his car. His Hu-ness was told of the call while yelling at Li Xiao in the corridor of the opium den. Loa Wei Fen got the call as he moved along Fang Bang Road and admired the building clouds to the east. Rain was going to come. A deluge to wash him over the edge.

  The bus station was as stupid an idea as the train station. Fong didn’t even allow the cabbie to slow down before he shouted a new destination. The cabbie looked around at him like he was a nut. “The theatre?” he demanded. Fong turned to Amanda who held out a handful of money. Fong took it and tossed it to the driver.

  The cab swung out into traffic and phones rang all over the city.

  Fong spotted the roadblock before the cabbie did and yelled at him to pull over. Before the cab stopped moving Fong had the door open. He threw money at the driver and shouted an address far in the other direction. He didn’t really believe that the cabbie would bother to go where he was instructed. Fong didn’t need that. Just a five-minute head start. Just get the police to follow the cab for five minutes and he’d have a place for Amanda and himself to hide for the rest of the afternoon. The cab pulled a dangerous V-turn and sped away. As it did a police car roared after it but Fong didn’t stay to watch the show. Racing through the crowd and onto the overpass, he and Amanda crossed over Xian and then headed down a back alley. At the end of the alley, in front of a low door, he stopped. He looked back. There was no one following. A gnarled old man answered his knock. He looked at Fong inquiringly. “I’m Fu Tsong’s husband.” The ancient’s face lit up and he opened the door. They stepped inside.

  Just as they did, a woman with a red armband leaned out her window to place her laundry out to dry. She thought she saw a small Chinese man with a tall white woman enter the back door of the theatre. That’s what she thought she saw. And s
he knew her duty: to report what she saw, thought she saw, or wanted others to believe she saw. She completed hanging her bamboo pole strung with laundry and then headed down the five flights of stairs aiming her bent figure toward the alley’s mouth and its phone kiosk.

  Amanda was amazed. They were in the wings of an old theatre. Onstage were some of the sets of the Shanghai branch of the classic Peking opera. Before them dozens of actors in classical makeup and costume were readying themselves for rehearsal. Fong was standing to one side talking to one of the actresses. After a moment, she ushered Fong and Amanda into a small room, telling Amanda (with Fong interpreting) that she was “Su Shing, a dear friend of Fu Tsong’s. Fong’s wife.” She opened a large closet and removed an elaborate costume and pots of makeup. Fong had already removed his outer clothing and was sitting in front of the makeup mirror. Su Shing gave a slight bow and left the two.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Hiding. It’s the only place I could think of where you wouldn’t stand out. You might have noticed that you look somewhat different from almost everyone of the fourteen million people in this city.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that.”

  “Good. Put on the costume. I’ll do your makeup for you.”

  “You’ll put on my makeup?”

  “That’s what I said, unless you know how to do the Peking opera makeup for your character.”

  “How do you know how to do this?”

  “My wife was an actress.” She noticed him falter for an instant. Then he added, “For a long time.” After another clearly troubled moment he spoke again. “She was a great actress. She liked me to do her makeup for her. She taught me. I learned.”

  Amanda was sitting now. Fong stood facing her with one of his legs between hers. His delicate hands pushed aside her hair. “Hold this back.” She did. He reached for the pot of white makeup. “I’ve got to go over your wound. It’ll hurt. Okay?”

  She nodded and took tight hold of his leg. He took a large swath of the white ointment and spread it over her cheek with a smallish trowel. When it touched the wound her nerves sent shards of pain straight down the bones of her face to her chest. She bit her lip to hold back a scream.

  He saw it but kept on. With her face covered in the white paint, he reached for the costume’s headdress. Its long feathers swayed as he placed it over her blond hair and tucked in the tendrils. Tears were running down her cheeks as the pain continued. He ignored them and helped her out of her blouse, skirt, and shoes and into the elaborate costume, adjusting the many hidden straps. Finally he slipped her feet into the black and white platform shoes.

  “Stand up.”

  As she did, he took a step back and looked at her in the mirror. Even without her makeup completed, she was exquisite. He quickly applied the covering base makeup to his own face and then put on the costume of the serving man. When he was finished he stood beside her and looked into the mirror.

  The two of them stared at the couple in front of them.

  Slowly she reached up and touched one of the feathers on the headdress.

  “Draw it down slowly and bend it into your mouth,” he said.

  She did as he said, drawing the feather down and placing part of it between her lips. A buzz of pleasure shot through him.

  “Who am I?”

  “You’re you.”

  “No, I mean who am I dressed as?’’

  Fong was about to say ”You are dressed as you“ but stopped himself.

  ”A beautiful princess from the coast who was promised in marriage to a prince of the west.“

  ”And you?“

  ”The serving man entrusted with taking you across three thousand miles of China. Across snow-covered mountains, swift wide rivers, and vast deserts to bring you to your new husband.“ ”And do you?“

  ”I do.“

  ”And do we fall in love on the journey?“

  After a silence in which both of them heard each other’s shallow intake of air, ”Yes.”

  “Do we consummate our love?”

  “In our own way, yes. In the three-year journey we only touch once. When I break my leg crossing a river. You insist that I ride the horse. You help me onto the horse’s back. Our hands touch for an instant.”

  “Our consummation.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happens when we finally get to the court of the west?”

  “Your new husband is there. He is indifferent to you. You are only a pawn in a game of politics. But he takes you in. He completes his part of the game.”

  “And what happens to you?”

  “I turn around and walk three thousand miles back to the sea.”

  She touched his hand. It felt dry like rice paper.

  “Did your wife play this role?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  He began to complete her makeup. “She’s dead?” He nodded yes and continued with her makeup, being as careful as he could to avoid the wound on her cheek. She put a hand into his free hand. For a moment he didn’t respond to it. Then he returned the touch. Jolts of feeling leapt between them, their touch a full consummation.

  Li Xiao was in the middle of grilling the cabbies who had driven Fong when the call came through. Li Xiao called for a map. Wang Jun said, “Fuck that, follow me.” The parade of cops spun about and headed back toward the theatre.

  Withdrawing her hand from his, Amanda looked up at this strange man from this distant country. She could feel a third person in the room with them. “What was her name, your wife?”

  “Fu Tsong.” He pronounced the name simply but to her ear with immense delicacy and sadness.

  “How long ago did she die?”

  “Years, days, minutes. Sometimes she’s not dead at all,” he said in a flat, faraway voice. Tears were in his eyes.

  “Tell me.”

  And he did. How they met. How he loved her. How his careless words led to her death. How he found her on an abortionist’s table. How he was never sure whether she loved him. Each phrase hit the centre of the still pond between them, sending perfect circles out in all directions.

  After he stopped speaking she allowed a lengthy silence. Finally she asked, “Why did you take me here?”

  “To hide you.”

  “I already told you that you’re a bad liar. Why am I here? ”

  “To produce a memory.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of you.”

  “Why?”

  “This is China. There is no way to escape here. I will be caught shortly and I will be sent to prison for a very long time. I need a memory for the nights when the darkness gets too great for me to bear. I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.”

  “Don’t be. What’ll they do to me?”

  “They’ll try to frighten you. Probably deport you. They don’t care about you. They do care about upsetting your government so nothing serious will happen to you. Just be brave and you will be home in a week.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of that? Absolutely.”

  “And of other things?”

  She saw his mind return to Fu Tsong. She knew that he was fading from her.

  She reached for him. The clouds parted and he was with her again.

  “Don’t go away like that.”

  “I loved her very much and hurt her very badly.”

  What was Amanda to say to that? The truth of what he said was etched clearly on his face. So clearly that makeup couldn’t hide it. In fact, as was the beauty of Peking opera makeup, his emotions were conveyed with startling clarity.

  She reached for his hand again. This time when they touched, they just touched hands.

  Bones and skin and sinew failed to transcend this world’s realities.

  Onstage Su Shing was working with several actors and actresses. All the women were dressed and made up as the princess in Journey to the West and all the men as the serving man. The musicians played a section of the opera as Su Shing illustrated a moment in the journey in which
the princess, in fear, pulls down her left feather with her left hand while shooting her right leg straight forward. Su Shing then hit a high note and contracted into an exquisite pose. As she did, the cymbals sounded and, as if on cue, the police entered from the back of the theatre. Wang Jun was in the lead with Li Xiao and Commissioner Hu right behind. At the same time several burly northern cops came from backstage. One stepped forward and called to the back of the theatre, “There’s no one left backstage on this side, we’re checking the other side.” He made no reference to the stagedoor man. Fong stood at the back of the group of actors dressed as the serving man. As half the cops moved across the stage he scanned the wings. He knew what had happened to the stage-door man. He didn’t know exactly how he knew but he knew in his bones that Loa Wei Fen was in the theatre too. That he had followed them somehow and killed the doorman to get in undetected.

  Su Shing stepped forward, berating the policemen. “This is a rehearsal, not a police station. There is a performance of these apprentice actors in less than half an hour and they are going through their final preparations.”