by Qiu Xiaolong
Riverside Villas was a high-end subdivision, where a security guard stood in front of its gate with an archlike top. There was a booth with a phone, a desk, and a chair. Once more Chen had to produce his badge. The middle-aged security guard named Aiguo cooperated zealously. According to him, the gate closed at midnight, and residents returning later had to speak to the night security through the intercom before getting in. Aiguo happened to be the one working here last night.
“Oh, you’ve been working continuously for more than forty hours,” Chen said, glancing at his watch.
“It’s not a fancy job, but I can doze, off and on, in the booth at night,” Aiguo said, scratching his head. “There were only two who came back after twelve last night. Jiang was one of them, around one, in a taxi. I had to put it in my time sheet.”
It did not exactly fit with the time of death the police estimated for An, Chen thought.
“In addition, I had the taxi license number copied,” Aiguo went on. “If you want to know more, I can call for you here, Chief Inspector Chen. The taxi belongs to the People’s Taxi Company, I know.”
“I appreciate your offer, Aiguo.” Chen was surprised by his eagerness to cooperate. He wondered whether Aiguo bore any personal grudge against Jiang. “But tell me first a little bit about Jiang in general. He’s lived here for a couple of years-one of the earliest residents in the subdivision, I’ve heard.”
“Who can afford to live here?” Aiguo responded. “Corrupt officials and big-buck capitalists. At the price of twelve thousand yuan per square meter, I could save all I earn for ten years, without eating and any other expense, and I still would not be able to buy a bathroom in the area. The gap between rich and poor is really like that between cloud and clod. When Jiang bought it, he paid only one thousand yuan per square meter, not to mention a special discount no one knows about. Is that fair in our socialist society?”
“No, it’s not fair.”
“But what can you do? Jiang, like other residents here, simply takes a security guard like me as trash. Especially Jiang, one of those damned night animals. It seems as if they never have to sleep, like rats. Two or three times a week, he comes back after the closing of the gate. Sometimes two or three o’clock. I have to get up to open the gate for him. But I’m a man, and I need to sleep. Right now it’s not too bad to get up a couple of times at night, but in the winter, it’s hell. I shiver like a straw man. They have heating at home, but there is nothing in the booth here. Nothing but an old army overcoat. And what can he be up to until two or three at night? Not official business, surely.”
“It’s hard for you,” Chen said, nodding. Aiguo’s animosity was understandable. And it was an opportunity for Chen. He might as well gather as much information as possible here, even if Jiang’s nocturnal activities were not related to An’s case.
“Now, one night’s expense for people like Jiang can be far more than one month’s pay for me, Chief-” Aiguo made an abrupt halt as a black Lexus came rolling in view.
Out of the car emerged a middle-aged man Chen recognized from the pictures as Jiang.
“Hello, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jiang said in a loud, warm voice, walking over in strides. “You are looking for me, I’ve heard.”
It was an encounter Chen had not anticipated. Jiang must have cut short his visit to Qingpu. But it was an inevitable encounter, Chen reflected, considering the photographs in his briefcase.
“I’ve heard a lot about the area. I happen to have a meeting in Pudong this afternoon, so I wanted to take a look here.”
“Now that you’re here, why not come in?”
“Yes, in front of a temple, I’d better go in to kowtow to the clay image.”
“Well, you won’t go to a temple without having something to pray for.”
Aiguo listened to the exchange of proverbs between the two with a knowing smile, waving his hand at Chen as he walked in with Jiang.
Jiang’s apartment was on the top of a twenty-two-story high rise. The suite was renovated, featuring a spacious living room and a bedroom on one level and another bedroom and a study on an added second level. It looked like a townhouse in a new style called fushi, popular for its economical use of space in the overcrowded city.
But this apartment, Jiang explained, had been designed for a different purpose: Jiang’s paralyzed wife. The barely furnished living room was simply a larger area where she could move around in her wheelchair. His wife managed to hiss out a greeting in a raucous voice.
“She was paralyzed fifteen years ago in a car accident,” Jiang whispered. “It affected her speaking ability too.”
The normal sexual life for the two might also have been affected, Chen observed. Still, Jiang had been nice to her in his way, at least in designing the interior of the house. But did that justify his affair with An?
They went upstairs to the study in silence. Jiang closed the door after him, and they sat on either side of the desk. Chen could hear the wheelchair rolling about downstairs.
There was no point in beating about the bush. Chen started talking about the Xing investigation, focusing on the approval Jiang had given Ming’s land development request.
As Chen had anticipated, Jiang made a total denial, as if he could push out the moon by shutting the window.
“I didn’t know anything about Ming’s relationship with Xing, Chief Inspector Chen. The land development was approved because I didn’t see anything wrong with the plan in itself,” Jiang said with a serious expression. “You question the part about the continuous factory operation, but it had been studied and approved by Comrade Dong of the State Company Reform Office before it had been submitted to me.”
“So you have never looked into the matter yourself.”
“Do you know how many applications I have to read every day? No way can I do careful research on a particular one. The market is money-oriented. Property development involves a lot of risk. No businessman wants to do things for others, or for the country. So it was with Ming’s application, but other than that, I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”
“Well,” Chen said, knowing he had no choice but to play his trump card. “Can you tell me where you were last night, Director Jiang?”
“What do you mean?” Jiang snapped, staring at Chen with daggers flying out of his glare. “How can you talk to me like that?”
“I am talking to you as an emperor’s special envoy-that is Comrade Zhao’s term-directly under the Party Discipline Committee,” Chen said, producing the authorization on the committee’s letterhead. “I would hope you would cooperate with me.”
“An emperor’s special envoy? It’s almost the end of the twentieth century, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. I feel ashamed for you.” Jiang made a visible effort to control himself. “I have explained to you everything about that matter with Ming. He disappeared several weeks ago. Why, all of a sudden, do you want to know my whereabouts last night?”
“Why can’t you give me a direct answer, Director Jiang?”
Chen’s cell phone rang. It was Aiguo. Chen excused himself and walked to the window.
“I’ve already learned something from the taxi driver. He picked up Jiang around twelve last night at a bathhouse called Niaofei Yuyao.”
“Niaofei Yuyao, I see,” Chen said. An ironic coincidence that they had visited the same bathhouse. The one who retreats for fifty steps should not laugh at the one who retreats for a hundred steps. “Thank you so much, Aiguo. That’s very important.”
But that practically ruled out the possibility of Jiang’s being the murderer, Chen contemplated, turning off the phone. He sat back down at the desk and said to Jiang, “I apologize for the interruption, Director Jiang.”
“Now you’d better give me an explanation, Chen,” Jiang demanded. “I’m a Party cadre of eleventh rank. What do you really want with me? You approached my driver stealthily this morning, and then the security in the subdivision.”
“Lai told you that?”
“H
e tried to put the duck bones into the refrigerator in the office, and I found everything out.”
“Now let me tell you something, Director Jiang. Because I took into consideration your cadre rank, I tried to conduct the investigation in an inconspicuous way, and to approach Lai and the security informally first. Why? One of the people involved in the land approval was murdered last night.”
“What? Are you considering me a suspect in a homicide case?” Jiang rose in indignation.
“Calm down, Comrade Jiang. As a police officer, I have to check into everything. I have evidence about your involvement with her.”
“Her? Evidence! Don’t bluff me like a three-year-old kid.”
“Have you heard of the death of An Jiayi?”
“You mean the anchorwoman. Yes, I read about it in the newspaper today. A shameless slut on the sly.”
Chen was infuriated in turn by Jiang’s callousness.
“You knew the slut only too well on the sly, Jiang,” he said, also rising from the desk. He tossed the pictures on it. “Take a damned good look at them. And then you can say that to me again.”
Jiang stared at the pictures in disbelief, as if he had too hard a time changing back from the lover in the pictures to a high-ranking Party cadre in his study. His face turned to white, then to red, and he was unable to say a word.
The sound of the wheelchair rolling around on the floor below came up to them through the silence.
“Undeniable evidence,” Chen said in a low voice.
“How could you have stooped so low?”
“Will you believe it if I tell you, Director Jiang, that people have been watching you for a long time? There’s one thing I can assure you. I didn’t do it. Nor do I know who did.”
It was true, and full of implications too.
“So what do you want me to do, Chief Inspector Chen?” Jiang said. “I was with some friends last night. They can prove it.”
“In a private massage room, with another naked girl serving you hand and foot.”
“You-” Jiang stammered in astonishment
It was only a guess, but Jiang’s reaction proved it. Panic-stricken, he believed that he had been followed everywhere.
“Let’s not talk about last night yet. Tell me what you know about Ming. And about An,” Chen said. “I don’t want to brag about my special position, Director Jiang, but I can do something with the ‘imperial sword’ in my hand, I want you to bear that in mind. For instance, I can withhold these photos from the higher authorities, and I can also give them to Shanghai Morning.”
“Now that I have learned of Ming’s relation to Xing, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jiang started on a different tune, “how can I not try to help? Ming could have used An as his PR person, I see, in a devious scheme. As for An, her marriage was long on the rocks. In the Western world, she would have automatically divorced her husband-such a long separation. And my married life was totally wrecked in the car accident.”
“That’s neither here nor there, Director Jiang.”
“But if you think the approval for the land development went through because of her relationship with me, you are wrong, Chief Inspector Chen. Such an application has to travel from one office to another, either through the front door or the back door. Not only in Shanghai, but also in Beijing -with other connections at a much higher level.”
“Connections at a much higher level.” Chen had thought about that. After all, Jiang had functioned only as one link in a long chain, all of which Chen had to trace. In order to minimize his responsibility, Jiang might be willing to drag some others into the mire. “Tell me about them.”
“Yes, I think-I think I know some names possibly connected,” Jiang said hesitantly. “But it’s such an important case, and with a murder involved, that I have to verify some information first. It won’t do to throw out irresponsible accusations.”
“You know I can’t wait. So you may give me the names. I’ll do the background check first.”
“Like the background check you’ve been doing on me?” Jiang said with a bitter smile. “It’ll take only a couple of days for me to find out. I can’t tell you anything at this moment.”
“You don’t have to go into details,” Chen said, wondering whether Jiang had recovered from the blow and begun procrastinating. “Anything you can think of. I have to make my report to Comrade Zhao.”
“If you really can’t wait for a day or two, Chief Inspector Chen, you may go ahead and do whatever you have to do. I have been a Party member for many years, and I know better than to destroy other hardworking Party cadres-like me-for things they might not have done.”
Those pictures would be more than enough to crush Jiang’s career. Once Chen turned them over, however, he would have no cards left in his hands. Jiang would be a dead pig, and the water, no matter how steaming hot, made no difference. His confession about his adulterous relationship with An might be hot in tabloid magazines, but that wasn’t what Chen wanted to read. As Jiang had said, Ming’s deal was not one Jiang alone could have approved. It might be true that he had to verify something first, and that he had reasons to be very cautious about things at a “much higher level.”
Downstairs, his wife burst into a violent fit of coughing.
“I’ll give you a couple of days,” Chen said, rising again. “But no more than that. I have no choice, you know.”
In the meantime, Chief Inspector Chen would keep a close surveillance on Jiang, who, like An, might have to contact others in desperation.
9
BUT CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN did not have much time to follow the latest development in his investigation.
A cricket was still screeching in the fragmented dream of the early morning when the phone in his room shrilled. He rubbed his sleepy eyes in disorientation. It was a long-distance call from Chairman Wang Yitian, of the Chinese Writers’ Association in Beijing.
“Chief Inspector Chen, we have a very important assignment for you. You are going to serve as the head of the Chinese Writers’ Delegation for the America-China Literature Conference in Los Angeles next week-to be exact, the day after tomorrow.”
“You cannot be serious, Chairman Wang. For such a conference, I would need a lot of preparation. No way can I leave at such short notice,” Chen said, blinking in a crack of the sunlight that glared through the early summer trees. A peddler started hawking fried dough sticks in the first wave of heat. It was said the much-used oil might contain alum from the dough sticks, but he felt strangely hungry at the moment. “I have no idea what this conference is about.”
“We understand,” Wang said. “In fact, we’ve been talking about it with the Americans for months. Comrade Yang Jun had been chosen as the delegation head, but all of a sudden, he fell sick. We have to have someone to replace him.”
“But how can I replace him? Yang is a writer of international renown. There are so many better-known writers, senior and more qualified, in the Writers’ Association. Who’s the one after Yang in the delegation?”
“Bao Guodong. A senior working-class writer, but it would have been an international joke to appoint Bao as the head. He doesn’t speak English, nor has he any knowledge of American literature. Once, he made a point of calling Americans by the Chinese equivalent. So Dr. Hegel became Dr. Hei, which in Chinese could mean Dr. Black.”
“But it doesn’t have to be Bao. Anybody else can do it.”
“It’s a conference that a lot of people are watching. The first one between the two countries since 1989. Not simply any writer may fulfill the position.”
“What do you mean, Chairman Wang?”
“It’s an urgent matter of improving our international image. So it takes an experienced, talented, politically reliable writer like you to head the delegation. As a young Party cadre writer, you are the best candidate we can think of. A modernist poet and translator, you have an intimate knowledge of Western literature, and you have experience in receiving foreign writers. Besides, you can speak English to you
r American counterparts, while they cannot speak Chinese-a plus for our collective image. Of course, the appointment is not made just in consideration of one’s status as a writer.” Wang paused before moving on. “Politically, you have to know what to say, what not to say. As a representative of Shanghai Congress, you are surely qualified to head a government delegation.”
“I’m honored that you have thought of me,” Chen said, trying to come up with more official-sounding excuses, for he was disturbed by the timing of the assignment. “I’m too young and inexperienced. I don’t see that my Party position has anything to do with the assignment.”
“It has everything to do with it, Comrade Chen. You are a Party cadre, and I don’t think it necessary to discuss that part.”
“To be honest, I don’t think I am so popular, as you know, among old writers. So far, I have only published one poetry collection. That’s far from enough for a delegation head.”
“Many writers are not always easy to get along with, but you are not exactly one of their circle. That should help. I don’t think the old writers will make things hard for you.”
“Because of my law enforcement background?” Chen said alertly.
“You don’t have to think that way. But now that you have mentioned it, I don’t think it will be hard for you to enforce discipline-if need be.”
“To enforce discipline, indeed-”
“This is an assignment you cannot say no to, Comrade Chen Cao. It’s in the interests of the Party.”
“In the interests of the Party!” Chen ground out his cigarette in disgust, a gesture invisible to the chairman in Beijing.
There was no immediate response from the other end of the line. Wang might be waiting for him to go on. A small commotion seemed to be breaking out in the street. He looked out to see a dog barking in a red convertible stuck in the traffic congestion. For the first time, the word pet had become a reality in Chinese life. He had never before seen such a scene except in American movies.