The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon

by Liu Zhenyun

  Lao Gao, who ran a Weigong Village diner, wasn’t as good a cook as he was, and Gao told him he made over ten thousand a month. With Liu’s skill, conservatively speaking, he could easily make twenty thousand a month, over two hundred thousand a year. He’d be rich.

  But making money was not that big a deal; more important for Liu was the prospect of being able to hold his head high, and no more bullying from others. When that happened, his ex-wife would see what Liu Yuejin was made of, and his son would know that he hadn’t lied about having money.

  Cheered by these positive thoughts, he was reminded of Ma Manli, who was unaware of his flight from Beijing. When he opened his diner and started making money, he’d bring her over to be the boss lady, though he wasn’t sure she’d want to. Money didn’t seem to matter to her, not compared to friendship, though she had no time for penniless men either, since poverty could be a sign of a man’s fecklessness. She hadn’t thought much of Liu when he was a cook, but she might change her attitude once he became the owner of a diner.

  And there was her preference for a good talker. He wasn’t articulate, not now, because, as a hired cook, he’d had to hold back and watch his step; as a boss, he’d gain confidence and might even become silver-tongued.

  With a jumble of thoughts running through his head, Liu experienced an emotional rollercoaster, sad one moment and elated the next. After passing Fengtai, the train stopped at Zhuozhou for five minutes before continuing south.

  When a dining cart selling boxed lunches came down the aisle, Liu realized he was hungry. Since the night before, when he was on the run, he’d had no time to worry about his stomach, but now that he felt safe he asked the price of a box of rice with a thin layer of bean sprouts plus two pieces of fatty pork. Five yuan. Way overpriced. He knew that the ingredients cost no more than fifty cents and they were asking five yuan. These people were unconscionable, taking advantage of passengers who could not get off the train to eat. He had more than a hundred yuan left from the money he’d taken from Little Fatso, after spending twenty on a cab ride and thirty for the train ticket.

  Not knowing what he’d need to spend money on, he decided not to buy lunch and wait till they reached Baoding, where boxed lunches were sold on the platform. There he asked the price: two-fifty for the same thing, rice with bean sprouts and two pieces of fatty pork. Also a rip-off but cheaper than what he could get on the train. So he got off, handed over the money and picked the box that looked fullest. He had begun to eat on his way back to his seat when someone came up to him.

  “Got a match?” the man asked, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

  Liu took out his lighter.

  “You’re Liu Yuejin, aren’t you?” the man whispered while lighting his cigarette.

  Liu tensed up; a sense of foreboding made him hurry toward the door to his compartment.

  “I don’t know you.”

  The man laughed and fell in behind him.

  “If you’re going back to Henan to see your son, you can forget about that. We’ve been to your place and he’s not there.”

  “Who are you?” Liu stood still.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that we know your son isn’t in Henan, and we also know your plan to go see him about a purse. We have it, but what we’re looking for isn’t in it.”

  Liu could feel his hair standing straight up.

  “Where’s my son?” he asked in a panicky voice.

  The man smiled and continued to puff on his cigarette, without responding. It finally dawned on Liu that his son had been kidnapped, a far more serious matter than losing the pack and the IOU. The tiger was now a crocodile intending to eat him, and his son as well. It was clear that the man was from yet another group, though he had no idea which one. Then he wondered if they indeed had his son or if it was just a scam to blackmail him. As if he could read Liu’s mind, the man whipped out his cell and punched in a string of numbers before handing the phone to Liu.

  “Who is this?” Liu barely got the question out when he heard weeping on the other end.

  “It’s me, Pa.”

  It was his son.

  “What did you take from the purse, Pa?” he asked angily. “Why have they locked us up in a dark room?”

  Liu heard a noise that sounded like a slap, followed by Liu Pengju’s beseeching voice. He was begging someone else, not his father.

  “Please don’t hit me any more, good uncle,” his son begged. “I don’t have it.”

  Then came Mai Dangna’s sobbing.

  “Please let me go, Elder Brother. I have nothing to do with this.”

  The lunch box slipped out of Liu’s hand and hit the ground with a thud. His face ashen, Liu looked at the man, who sniffled and put his phone away. After all that had happened over the past two weeks, Liu had learned to read a person’s face. Those who smile broadly while they carry out heinous acts are the most merciless and evil, like the man in front of him.

  “What, what do you want?” he stammered out of fear.

  It was a pointless question. The man draped his arm around Liu’s shoulders as if they were best friends.

  “Give me that object and I’ll tell them to let your son go.”

  “I don’t have it with me.” Liu knew he had to tell the truth now.

  “On the train?” The man pointed to the train.

  “It’s still in Beijing,” Liu confessed.

  “Go get your things,” the man said calmly. “We’re going back to Beijing together.”

  34

  Lao Xing

  Along with two Shijiazhuang policemen, old Xing spent the afternoon searching the area around the train station, but failed to locate Liu Yuejin. The policemen, also in plainclothes, told him that Liu was not on the noon train. When they didn’t see him get off, they went looking for him, causing a ten-minute delay of the train’s departure. They searched every car, but he was nowhere to be found. Xing had his phone on the whole time, and Liu did not call; Xing could not contact him either.

  After thanking his colleagues, Xing searched on his own, with full knowledge that it was fruitless. If he wasn’t on the train, he could not be at the station. He’d lost Liu again. But he refused to admit defeat; there was a sliver of hope that Liu might have switched trains and would arrive in Shijiazhuang later. Train after train came and went; he finally gave up at nightfall. Liu Yuejin would not be coming to Shijiazhuang; he’d either deceived Xing or something had happened to him. If it was the latter, where could it have happened, in Beijing or along the way? If it was on the way to Shijiazhuang, then the problem was with the rendezvous point; too far from Beijing, it had given whoever it was a chance to intercept. But Xing had chosen the place, so he only had himself to blame. He’d been in high spirits when he set out earlier, and now he’d cooled off, though he wasn’t actually upset. He went to a restaurant near the station, where he ate two fried cakes stuffed with donkey meat, before driving back to Beijing.

  35

  Liu Yuejin

  Liu Yuejin chatted with his son’s kidnapper all the way back to Beijing. The slim man, who was in his thirties, had a driver, so he and Liu sat in the back. Having been on Liu’s tail for twenty-four hours, he knew what had happened at Cao’s shed the night before and had followed him onto the train.

  “Lao Lu followed the train to Baoding.” The man pointed to his driver.

  Lao Lu, expressionless and wordless, drove on.

  The man had nothing against Liu; he’d kidnapped his son for money, nothing else. Since they both knew what had happened, they could talk frankly now that things were coming to a head. After a while, they realized they liked each other and might have become friends had they met under different circumstances.

  “May I ask your name?”

  “No need to stand on ceremony. You can call me Lao Fang,” the man said.

  Liu asked him how he’d thought about looking up Liu’s son and where he’d found him. With a laugh, Fang told Liu everything, starting with how
he’d been hired to look for the drive, which, everyone learned once Liu disappeared, was with him. While others searched for Liu in Beijing, Fang adopted a two-prong approach, telling his people to look for Liu in Beijing while he took people to Luoshui in case Liu returned to his hometown.

  When he got there, he discovered that Liu was not there, so he decided to find Liu’s son instead but learned that he had left for Beijing ten days earlier. At first he hadn’t planned on kidnapping the young man; he just thought he’d lead him to his father. Pretending to know Liu from the construction site, he tracked down Pengju’s friend, who gave him the young man’s cell number. Then, using a pay phone to impersonate someone from Luoshui, he called Pengju and asked where he was. After telling Fang he was in Beijing, Pengju asked who he was, but Fang said it was a wrong number and hung up. Upon returning to Beijing, he called Liu’s son from another pay phone to tell him his father had been in a car accident. When Pengju rushed over, Fang nabbed him and found out that the young man hadn’t seen his father for days, didn’t know he’d vanished and, in fact, knew less about his father than Fang did.

  It didn’t take much to frighten the young man. Impersonating a policeman, Fang told Pengju that his father was wanted for a stolen purse. Since they were unable to find Liu, they took him instead, and would let him go once they found his father and the purse. That was enough to get Pengju to come clean about the purse, which was now with his girlfriend, who had left him five days earlier after a fight. He had been looking for her, which was why he was still in Beijing. She had a cell but would not answer his calls. Using the same trick and sending a text message from his own cell, Fang told the woman that Pengju had been in a traffic accident and that he’d gotten her number from Pengju’s phone. When she rushed over, Fang grabbed her and the purse. He turned the purse inside out; there was no drive. Now he had to keep Liu’s son and his girlfriend while searching for Liu.

  Fang’s story told Liu everything he needed to know, but his first reaction was not concern for his son’s safety, since that was pointless. Instead, Liu was incensed over his son’s lie.

  “That little bastard lied to me again. He said he went back to Luoshui, but he’s still in Beijing. Kidnapping is too good for him. I never imagined that my own son would steal from me. I hope he’s learned his lesson.”

  “The purse was in your possession, and he’s your son.” Fang disagreed. “Which means he took it; he didn’t steal it.”

  Liu was still fuming. “I could tell at first glance that his girlfriend was no good. It must have been her idea to steal from me.”

  “She was right, though.” Fang laughed. “Do you know how much the purse is worth?”

  “How much can a purse be worth?”

  “It’s a famous brand purse and they only make a few. It’s worth over a hundred thousand renminbi.” Fang added, “But your son’s girlfriend didn’t know that either.”

  Liu was beyond disbelief. When he found the purse, he’d actually cursed Yang Zhi for being a lousy thief. He often stole money from the poor, but when it came to stealing from the rich, he managed only to get women’s things. Liu had paid little attention to the purse when rummaging through its contents, even though he wouldn’t have been able to tell its value either, for it looked like an ordinary purse. Obviously the rich spend their money on very different things. If he’d known, he would not have had to search for his pack after finding the purse. The pack did contain an IOU, but it was for only sixty thousand, while the purse itself was worth more than a hundred thousand. Life had played another trick on him; it was as if he’d found a horse after losing a goat, but didn’t know it was a horse. Obviously, Yang hadn’t known the purse’s worth either.

  Fang laughed again at the rueful look on Liu’s face. With the long-winded story as a preamble, Fang now felt it was the right time to cut to the chase.

  “Where have you hidden the drive?” he asked nonchalantly.

  The question brought Liu back to reality now that the purpose of their chat was revealed. At this point, he knew he had no option but to tell him everything.

  “In Brother Cao’s shed.”

  It was Fang’s turn to be flabbergasted. He had thought the cook would hide the drive at the construction site, at a friend’s place, or anywhere other than a place belonging to the very people who were after him. Fang didn’t believe him, but instead of getting angry, he asked for details.

  “How did you manage that?”

  “I carried it with me wherever I went. After they nabbed me last night, I tossed it into a basket of duck feathers when they weren’t looking.”

  “Why didn’t you take it with you when you escaped last night?”

  “I was afraid I’d be caught again. The thief’s den is the safest place, the last place they’d look.”

  Fang fixed his gaze on Liu.

  “I’ve told you the truth. You can believe me or not; it’s up to you,” Liu said.

  After some consideration, Fang still thought it didn’t sound logical, which was precisely the reason why he had to believe Liu.

  “You’re no ordinary cook.”

  That said, Fang was not totally convinced of Liu’s story. On the other hand, he had Liu and his son, so Liu wouldn’t lie to him, but if he did, he had ways of dealing with them. One thing was certain—he wouldn’t be so amicable if and when Liu’s lie was exposed.

  They were still talking when they arrived in Beijing, where they discussed how to retrieve the drive, agreeing that, it being Cao’s place, they had to get it through wit, not force. Daytime was obviously no good. Armed with pistols, Fang was sure they’d overpower the people in the shed, who carried only knives, but an open fight would draw too much attention. They had to wait until after dark.

  “Is the place guarded at night?” Fang asked.

  “I have no idea. They might be working, they might not.”

  Fang decided they had to act that night to retrieve the drive, whether the place was occupied or not. If no one was there, they’d simply sneak in and get it; if there were people, they’d have to take it by force. At two in the morning, they drove to the peddlers’ market, where they stopped to size up the shed. It was dark inside and deadly quiet, apparently deserted. They argued over who should go in. Fang and Lu were not familiar with the place, so Fang thought that Liu was the ideal person to do it. But Liu was reluctant.

  “It may look deserted. But what if they’re in there? They carry knives, you know. I told you where the drive is, now you’ll have to get it.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be here if they find out and you get into a fight,” Fang tried to reassure him. “The sooner we have the drive, the sooner we’ll let your son go. And you and I will go our separate ways amicably.”

  The mention of his son got Liu into action, though he took his time getting out of the car. Lu grabbed him before he was out.

  “What if he runs away?” Lu asked Fang.

  “He’s a good man; he’d never abandon his son,” Fang said with a smile.

  That put Lu’s mind at ease. Liu got out, crept over to the shed, and pressed his ear to the door. After listening for enough time to smoke a cigarette, he heard nothing, so he quietly walked around to the back, where he pried open a window and jumped inside.

  In the car they waited for half an hour, but no sign of Liu. Lu was getting anxious.

  “Let’s give him a little more time.” Fang looked at his watch and said, “Maybe someone moved the basket and maybe the cook is stealing other stuff.”

  Fifteen minutes went by, and Liu was still inside. Fang finally sensed that something was wrong. They were about to get out for a look when a group of people stormed over like a whirlwind, led by Baldy Cui. Fang and Lu took out their pistols, only to see two rifles trained on their windshield. The night before, Fang had overpowered Cui with his pistol, but now Cui overwhelmed them with greater numbers.

  Fang put his pistol away and rolled down the window.

  “How did you know?”

>   Baldy laughed while pointing his rifle at the shed.

  “The cook’s in there. He alerted us.”

  Han Shengli, who was part of the group, took out his cell and said smugly, “He called me.”

  Fang realized that Liu Yuejin had been hatching a plan as they chatted on the way back to Beijing. He’d also put on an act of not wanting to enter the shed. Fang shook his head and said to Baldy with a smile, “He’s no ordinary cook.”

  Liu had sided with Cao not because he was a better man. In fact, it was his people who had hung him up and beaten him that night, while Fang was a good conversational partner. But Fang and Cao, both members of the underworld, meant pretty much the same thing to Liu. With the son in his clutches, Fang was a bigger threat than Cao, but, not knowing much about the man, Liu Yuejin was worried he might want more than just the drive; what if he planned to kill Liu after he got what he was looking for? It made no difference to Liu who got this drive, but if Fang wanted it more, then all three of them—Liu, his son, and his son’s girlfriend—would be done for.

  On the way back to Beijing, Fang had told Liu he wanted the drive for money and would let Liu’s son go once he got it; but he smiled when he talked about killing, which seemed to mean nothing to him, and that aroused Liu’s suspicions.

  Cao’s people, on the other hand, were only after the money. Liu learned that they had no idea what was on the drive when he overheard Cao’s conversation with his people the night before. He was even worried for Cao’s sake. By coming over to Cao, he’d ensure his own safety first before carrying out the next step. He’d get Cao to help him capture Fang and Lu to exchange for his son and his son’s girlfriend, after which he would negotiate a good price for the computer drive to make up for the amount on the IOU. He recalled there was a phone in the shed, so he’d have his chance when he went in to get the drive. That was what had been on his mind on their way back.

  Baldy Cui took Fang and Lu into the shed and turned on the light, giving Fang a view of the phone on the chopping board. Liu was crouching on the floor smoking. Without getting up when they entered, he told Baldy what he had in mind. To his surprise, Baldy would not agree to anything.