The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon
Page 28
He racked his brain trying to come up with an idea when a woman sat down across from him and ordered a bowl of noodles. Engrossed in his own thoughts, Liu did not pay her much attention until he paid and was ready to leave; a casual glance made him freeze on the spot. It was Qu Li, Yan Ge’s widow. He recognized her from when he’d played a corn vendor over a month before, and later, when he’d seen her from a distance when he and Yang Zhi tried to extort money from her. She had changed; she was now slender and well tanned. Recovering from his shock, Liu wondered if this was a chance encounter or if she had been looking for him.
“What … what are you doing here?” he stammered.
“It’s the perfect place to run into you.” She looked him in the eye.
“How did you know I was here?” He was frightened to know that she’d been looking for him and yet could not suppress his curiosity.
“You recall how Han Shengli got away during the raid?” Qu smiled.
Obviously, she’d found him through Han, who had been in the toilet when Xing showed up with the police to arrest Cao and his gang. Han had taken off at the sight of the police cars surrounding the shed. He must have gotten Liu’s information from old Gao. Liu looked around and saw Han standing outside the shop gesturing at him, still asking for his money back.
“I didn’t want to go see you in Beijing, where you could have betrayed me.”
So she had been following him for all that time. The more he knew, the scarier the situation felt to him. Qu could not be after him for Han’s money, and Liu had nothing to do with the traffic accident that killed her husband, though when he thought about it, he was not completely in the clear.
“That wasn’t my idea.” He added, “Mr. Yan wasn’t a bad person.”
“That has nothing to do with you.” Qu Li dismissed him with a wave.
“Then it’s because of that corrupt official who got Mr. Yan into trouble.”
“It’s not his fault either. It’s no big deal for someone that high to accept bribes. Just like a cook who takes a few bites of the food he’s cooking. Am I right?”
Liu gave the analogy some thought and shook his head. “What then?”
“It’s what else he wanted,” she said with a sigh.
Liu was confused, but dared not ask any more. She took out a cigarette and lit it.
“The matter should have been wrapped up, but when people are in prison, they’re scared, and when they’re scared they talk. They’ll say anything, whether they should or not, and that leads to something else.”
Liu knew she was referring to the corrupt official, the fat man on the video, but what did that have to do with him, Liu Yuejin? He wasn’t a corrupt official; all he wanted was to get his money back. It had been six days since his son had gone to Shanghai, which likely meant there was only forty thousand yuan left.
“There were some cards in the purse you found.”
There had been, but they were all bankcards, useless without a pass code. Besides, he wouldn’t have dared using them, even if he’d known the codes. Too risky. After hearing his explanation, she said:
“I don’t mean those. There was another card, smaller than the ATM cards, with a picture of the Monkey King. Where is it?”
So that was what she was after. He had seen that one, which was indeed smaller than the ATM cards. One side was golden yellow with the picture of a bauhinia flower while the other side had an image of the Monkey King wielding a club in front of a multicolored background. A dainty little thing, it had seemed unusual, so he’d kept it, but it had later escaped his attention, since everyone was focused on the drive. Then, after seeing the contents of the drive, he was worried that the card, like the drive, would bring him trouble, so he panicked and threw it away. He hadn’t mentioned it to Ma Manli. Why was this woman after that? He was going to play dumb, but she stopped him.
“Please don’t say you didn’t take it. I’ve spent over a month checking on the other items in the purse, and everything but the card has been accounted for.”
“I saw it but was afraid it would bring me more trouble so I threw it away.”
“It wasn’t a bankcard. It had even more on it, involving several lives.” She added, “I’ve been looking for you to see if you could help me find it.”
Liu jumped up from the bench. It had been over a month since he’d tossed the card into a trashcan in Bawangfen, in the eastern outskirt of Beijing. Where was he going to find it now? Besides, he had to go to Shanghai to find his son.
“I’m just a cook,” he railed. “Don’t come to me for the Monkey King, all right?”
“I didn’t want to.” She sighed. “But without it, people will still be looking for us.”
Liu sat back down, with his hands around his head, when a loud train whistle sounded in the station, announcing the arrival of the train for Shanghai.