The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon

by Liu Zhenyun

  What Lin had not expected was the timing of Yan’s death. They were into the fifth day of the search for the USB drive when Jia left the country with the express instruction that it must be retrieved within ten days, at which time Yan would have a traffic accident. Jia would still be abroad, an airtight alibi, which meant that Lin would be the only suspect if the scheme was exposed. He was impressed by how ruthless and cunning Jia was. Yan Ge, of course, was in the dark, and even on the day he died he could not understand why Jia had given him ten days to unearth the USB drive and later given him a five-day extension.

  Now they had the drive, except it was a fake, while the genuine one was still out there somewhere. Lin picked up a teacup and splashed hot tea into Fang Junde’s face.

  “It’s a fake, you idiot.”

  With his face burning, Fang’s mind went blank, as he faced the consequences of his con game. Ignoring the pain in his face, he turned, thumped Baldy Cui, and said to Lin:

  “I’ll keep looking.”

  He turned to leave as Lin leaned back against the chair and sighed.

  “It’s too late.”

  It was too late not because the drive was still missing, but because Director Jia was returning from Paris the next day, and Lin did not know what he could say to him. The fake drive was the right model and color, which could only mean that it was a swindle. He had been suspicious when it was stolen from Yan’s house in the villa compound. Now he had his proof, though it no longer mattered. The drive was obviously in the wrong hands and, more importantly, Yan was dead, when he should have died after the drive was recovered. Now the sequence of events was all jumbled up.

  40

  Liu Yuejin

  Lin was not in his office the next day when Xing went to arrest him. At his home Xing was by told by the maid that Lin had left for work early that morning. He must have fled the area, Xing surmised; they should have moved sooner, but it was not Xing’s fault. He had wanted to arrest everyone at Lao Qi’s Teahouse the night before, but his boss, the bureau chief, told him to wait a day after listening to his report. Why? The chief did not elaborate, and now Lin was gone.

  News came that night from the Xijun Hotel, the only six-star hotel in Beijing. Lin had not left town; instead he’d gone to the hotel, where he’d committed suicide. The front desk register showed that he’d checked in early that morning. That evening, a housekeeper rang his room and got no answer. Thinking the guest was out, she opened the door and went in. She noticed a strong alcohol smell and spotted two empty Maotai bottles on a table by a chair. Ignoring the bottles, she went to clean the bathroom; she pushed open the door and fainted at the sight of a man hanging from the showerhead. Whatever he had thrown up in the tub had already dried and crusted over. When she came to, she screamed, drawing the attention of hotel security; they took him down but he was long dead. He’d used his pajama belt. Security called the police, who found his work ID in his briefcase; they then called Lin’s office and notified the bureau.

  Lin’s death meant that the case was closed, partly due to Liu Yuejin’s help. Two nights earlier, when Fang forced Liu to steal the drive from the shed, Liu also called Xing. He did not know Xing’s true identity, he just wanted more people to know what had happened to him, an exit strategy if things did not pan out with Cao. He confessed to Xing about the trip to Henan, adding that he was not lying this time, as his life was in danger. He told Xing the computer drive was hidden in Beijing. If he failed to call Xing again by noon the next day, Xing should go to Cao’s shed to save him, and he’d turn over the drive. He did not tell Xing that he had an additional demand—he would turn over the drive only after Xing helped his son, his son’s girlfriend, and Ma Manli.

  After receiving the call, Xing rushed back to Beijing from Shijiazhuang, but did not wait till the following day. Instead, he told some plainclothes policemen to meet him at Cao’s shed; he did not free Liu right away, however, because he wanted to have everyone leaving the shed followed. Baldy Cui and Fang Junde were tailed as they headed to Lao Qi’s Teahouse. Completely in the dark, Liu was getting nervous when he could not get Cao’s people to make a deal, which was why he told Cao where he hid the drive. It was a fake, of course, but a good way to buy time. Liu had gotten the idea when Yang Zhi bought a fake one for the extortion scheme. Since he had the genuine one, Liu was able to buy an identical blank USB drive, which he then hid under the seat of the crane. He had not expected it would come in handy so soon.

  Where was the genuine drive?

  It was hidden in a place only Liu could think of. After watching what was on the drive with Manli, they were both frightened, but had no idea how best to hide the device. Prior to that, he’d had no qualms about carrying it with him, but now it felt as if he was walking around with a ticking bomb. The dining hall was out of the question, that was for sure, since so many people were trying to find him. Han Shengli was right when he concluded that Liu would not ask old Gao to keep it for him; Liu trusted Gao but did not want so many people to be involved. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. Manli’s Hair Salon was his next choice, but she would not go along. Like him, she was terrified after viewing it and, besides, everyone knew that Liu was at the salon all the time. They put their heads together but came up with nothing, until they parted ways and Liu hit upon an idea—the public toilet behind the salon. It was not a hiding place anyone could easily guess and was close enough to Manli that he could count on her help if worse came to worst. So he sneaked behind the salon, where he had to choose between the men’s and the women’s toilets. He decided on the women’s side. It was midnight and the place was deserted. He entered the third stall from the left and hid the USB drive between the fifth and sixth bricks from the top, and between the eighth and ninth bricks from the left.

  41

  Brother Cao and His Myna Bird

  Lao Xing failed to catch Lin but encountered no problems taking Cao and his people into custody. That night when he talked to the bureau chief, the chief agreed to arrest only the Cao gang. Cao had been waiting for Baldy Cui to return with seven hundred thousand yuan. At four in the morning Cui showed up, followed by a swarm of policemen. It was totally unexpected, but Cao knew better than to resist, so he surrendered.

  “How did you know?” he asked Xing.

  Instead of telling him about Liu Yuejin’s call, Xing looked into Cao’s turgid eyes and said:

  “Isn’t slaughtering ducks good enough? Why branch out into the underworld?”

  Cao ignored him and focused on his own question. “A small gang can’t outwit a big one,” he said with a sigh.

  Xing was wondering what he meant when the mynah bird cocked its tiny head and chimed in angrily:

  “Go to hell.”

  Xing and Cao were surprised. Cao had sealed the bird’s ears with wax to prevent it from learning curse words after teaching it three pleasant phrases. Maybe the ears had not been sealed completely, or maybe they had been but the wax had loosened up. In fact, the bird heard everything and had learned all the curse words it could manage; it was clever enough to keep its mouth shut. It turned out that even the mynah bird was playing dumb with Cao, who, instead of getting angry at the bird, gave it a nod and said, “Nicely said.”

  42

  Lao Xing

  Lao Xing received a commendation from the bureau chief, but ironically it was because he had failed to arrest the guilty party in a timely fashion and hence delayed solving the case, which in turn kept everything under wraps without alerting the one they really wanted. If the case had been solved earlier, Jia, who had been out of the country, might have got wind and decided to stay abroad. Since it dragged on for fifteen days, nothing was resolved until the day before his return. Xing apprehended all the others with the sole purpose of catching Jia, because only that would count as truly solving the case. And that was why the bureau chief had told him to wait a day before going after Lin; it was too bad Lin committed suicide before Xing got to him, but they managed to catch the big fish,
Jia.

  With him out of the country, the police encountered less interference, even though the progress of their investigation was entirely under their control the whole time. With the opportune delay, Jia remained in the dark, giving the police time to gather evidence for his arrest before he could make a move. So when he returned with the delegation, he was picked up at the Beijing airport the moment he stepped off the plane.

  Apprehending Jia meant the police were just getting started on the real case, which was to catch someone or some people above him. The case would remain open and Xing would follow leads in Jia’s network to see who else was guilty. He found these people intriguing; this was the kind of police work that interested him. But out of the blue he got an order to stop his investigation. The case was considered closed.

  Who exactly issued the order was never made clear to Xing or the bureau chief. But no matter, they had to stop. It was a regretful outcome, for it meant that what he had accomplished was all in vain. But regret was useless. Besides, it wasn’t the first time he’d run up against a higher power. He’d just consider the case closed and go after other strangers.

  43

  The Monkey King

  Xing thought he was done with the case, but Liu Yuejin would not let him off that easily, and went to see him every day. Solving the case with Jia might not have served any real purpose, but it was all because of the USB drive. After finally learning Xing’s true identity, Liu wanted a deal with him before going to the toilet to retrieve the drive. He would turn over the drive, but Xing had to help him find the pack that had been stolen twenty days earlier.

  “It’s been all about you and your police work. Now it’s my turn,” Liu said.

  Yang Zhi, who had first unburdened Liu of the pack, was already in custody, though he hadn’t been caught at the shed; he was still recovering from broken ribs at the Tangshan gang’s residence when the police kicked the door open. With the injury, he could not flee through the window, as he would have done before. As for the Gansu gang, Xing had seen them before, and did not think it would be hard to find them again, at least not as hard as finding the drive. When he was finished with the case, Xing started looking for the gang, checking all the places Yang mentioned, but came up empty after five days. In the meantime, the chief assigned him to another life-and-death case, believing him to be the best man for the job. He began to pay less attention to Liu’s problem because of the new case, and changed his tone when Liu went to see him.

  “I looked all over the city, and nothing.” He added, “They might have left Beijing and gone to another city.”

  The deal with Xing turned out to be a lost cause and Liu felt he’d been deceived, while the deadline specified on the IOU was only ten days away.

  “Fine, if you can’t find the thieves, you have to go to Henan as my witness so I can get my money.”

  “You need evidence to solve a case. What good would a word from me do if you don’t have the IOU?” Xing didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Besides, Henan is outside my jurisdiction.”

  Xing began avoiding Liu and refused to take his calls. Liu was disappointed, but could do nothing to a police sergeant, so he went out looking for the thieves again. He had no luck after a week of searching, yet he did not want to quit. He kept his job at the site, where a new owner had taken over the construction as if nothing had happened. The new boss, a heavyset man with a square face and a jovial personality, came to inspect the dining hall. Ren Baoliang told Liu the boss’s name, Sui Yi, but the pack was too important to pay Sui much attention; he continued searching for another week whenever he could find time.

  After living in Beijing for six years, Liu had known little about the city, but since losing his pack, he’d spent more than a month looking for it, and could now boast intimate knowledge of every major thoroughfare and small lane, though still with no results. One day he learned that his search was wasted effort. Li Gengsheng had paid up even without the IOU, and Liu’s son, Liu Pengju, got the whole sixty thousand yuan. When he and his girlfriend were kidnapped, they’d been beaten; their captors had burned their chests and legs with cigarettes. Pengju was outraged that his father had hidden the truth about the purse and caused them such pain and suffering, but through the incident he also got the story behind the kidnapping and, in particular, the IOU. Concluding that he needed to be compensated for his suffering, instead of pestering his father, he went back to Henan to demand sixty thousand yuan from his stepfather. Telling Li he would not let him off the hook now that he knew what had happened six years earlier, he wanted Li to give him the money or he’d seek revenge on his father’s behalf. His father might have been a coward, but not him, he threatened. When Li heard that the IOU was lost, he refused to pay by claiming there had been no such agreement.

  “Liu Yuejin was such a liar.” Li feigned anger. “Next time I see him, I’m going to give him another thrashing so he’ll know not to lie like that.”

  The setback inspired Pengju’s girlfriend, Mai Dangna, to suggest that they go see his mother, who had to know what had happened. Li was his stepfather, so it was natural that he would not honor the agreement, but Huang Xiaoqing was his birth mother, who had to be on his side.

  But Pengju did not go to see his mother directly. Instead, he kidnapped his half-brother the next day around noon when his mother went to get her hair done. The baby brother was not even three months old, but luckily was fast asleep when Pengju took him to Luoyang, where he checked into a hotel and called Li Gengsheng. Pay up in three days and he could have his son back; if not, he would strangle Li’s bastard son, he said. Stunned, Li was about to call the police when Huang stopped him and began to wail, complaining that it was all Li’s fault that her family had fallen to this state. Li had to kick himself for being so careless. A worldly man who had been through so much, he nevertheless was had by a youngster. He had no choice but to give Pengju sixty thousand yuan.

  Liu Yuejin was still out looking for his pack when the money changed hands. One day, after another fruitless search, he happened to pass by Weigong Village and decided to take a break at Lao Gao’s noodle shop and unload what had been troubling him. He’d lost a pack and found a purse, which had led to a harrowing experience, but in the end he’d come up empty-handed. Lao Gao, who had just returned from a visit back home, did not wait for Liu to finish his complaint before telling him about the money, a news event that had rocked the whole town. It stunned Liu, who could not have imagined such an outcome.

  Wordlessly, he left Gao’s shop and went directly to West Station, where he bought a ticket for Henan. After getting off at Luoyang, he switched to a long distance bus to Luoshui, fuming all along the way. Li should have given the money to him, not his son Pengju. It was a sum that would determine how the second half of his life and his relationship with Manli would turn out. After what she’d gone through, Manli blamed Liu for her near-death experience and refused to talk to him. On the other hand, the episode also changed the tenor of their relationship, and it was unimportant that she would not talk to him now. Once he had the money to open a restaurant and became a rich man, she’d change her tune. It was precisely this plan that had motivated his search over the past two weeks.

  Liu had changed after his recent brush with death. In the past he’d have thought first of suicide if he ran up against a problem, which was why he’d thought of killing himself when he first lost his pack. Yet when people began coming after him for the purse, the thought of suicide never occurred to him, not once. As he thought back to all that had happened, he realized that in the past he’d been alone and usually backed himself into a corner thinking about his problems. Now, with someone after him, survival was critical, so he had no time to do that. Or maybe his earlier problems were insignificant compared to what the USB drive entailed.

  More importantly, his world had been so small that he was unable to see the big picture until the drive threw him into a tumultuous ocean, where he learned not to take things too seriously. He finally u
nderstood what people meant when they said one does not drown easily in the ocean, but can capsize a dinghy in a ditch. With his old habit of muttering to himself, he said, “Fuck it.”

  He had learned to curse instead of ruing what had happened, as he used to do.

  But he could not really tell the sixty thousand yuan to go fuck itself. His dream for the second half of his life was shattered by none other than his own son, the real thief.

  By the time he got back to Luoshui, Liu had heard that his son had gone to Shanghai, telling people that he and his girlfriend would make a name for themselves with the money. They had thought of going to Beijing, but the nation’s capital disappointed them so much they’d changed their minds. Liu nearly fainted. He knew his son too well; instead of striking out for himself, the no-good young man would simply squander the money. He left Luoshui to go to Shanghai for fear that the money would be gone if he did not show up in time; it was a large sum to him, but would not go far in either Beijing or Shanghai. The situation was dire, so he did not go to see his ex-wife or her current husband; besides, what good would it have done to see them now?

  Liu first went to see Pengju’s classmate to get his son’s new phone number. In order not to alert him, Liu did not call right away; he wanted to wait until he arrived in Shanghai. Backtracking his earlier journey, he traveled from Luoshui to Luoyang, where he bought a ticket for Shanghai. The train would not be in the station for two hours, so as he waited, he realized how hungry he was after not eating for twenty-four hours. How many times had he forgotten to eat over the past month or so? Walking out of the station, he crossed the street to a shop and ordered a bowl of noodles with stewed mutton. As he ate without really tasting the food, he thought about how to get the money from his son. Reasoning with him would not work; Liu knew he needed to ensnare Pengju, but how?